Early Life
Born as the son of Julius Morton and Caroline Georgiana Wheeler (née Anderson) in Milwaukee, he was transferred from public school to a local German academy due to, in his own words, "persistently bad behavior". They had a small museum which Wheeler had studied since he was a child, and when Ward's Natural Science Establishment in early 1884 brought a collection of stuffed and skeletonized animals to the academy, to persuade the city fathers to purchase them, Wheeler volunteered to spend the nights in helping Ward to unpack and install the specimens. The latter was so impressed that he offered Wheeler a job in his Rochester, New York establishment. Here he identified birds and mammals, and later collections of shells, echinoderms and sponges. His shell catalogue was still in use by collectors in the late 1920s.
Read more about this topic: William Morton Wheeler
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)