Most folks recognize the name Roger Tory Peterson, the famous birder who wrote field guides to bird identification.
But who has heard of Phoebe Snetsinger?
Snetsinger, who grew up in Hawthorn Woods and attended high school in Lake Zurich, was the daughter of famous advertising giant Leo Burnett who invented icons such as the Pillsbury Doughboy and the Jolly Green Giant.
But that’s not why she became famous.
Snetsinger was the first person in the world to see and identify more than 8,000 of the world’s 9,700 bird species in the wild. And she did so while raising four children and dealing with cancer.
Though Snetsinger grew up in an age when women were expected to solely be homemakers, she attended Swarthmore College, raised four children and earned the distinction as one of the world’s finest birders, able to pick out birds wherever she traveled that she’d never seen before except in books.
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The village of Hawthorn Woods recently dedicated a garden at a community park to the former famous resident whom many did not know. Now, they are learning about Snetsinger’s fascinating and courageous life, and that she was a female in the birdwatching sport of listing dominated by males.
Even more compelling is that in her late 40s, Snetsinger was diagnosed with cancer and given one year to live. Instead, she spent the next 18 years traveling to all seven continents and 90 countries, many of them several times, to see new birds, often risking her life in countries with political upheaval.
I keep bird lists, too, though I’m not even at the top of the list in Illinois, let alone the world. I may have not risked my life, but I have gotten hurt on more than one occasion seeking a rare bird. For example, when a painted redstart, never seen before in Illinois, was reported at a Wauconda forest preserve this summer, I trudged through thorny woods with very dense undergrowth and many fallen logs, peering up to the tops of oaks and hickories. I stumbled often, and fell once.
My clothes and shoes were completely covered with tickseeds and other vegetation. Someone said I looked like a camouflaged soldier at war. I spent hours picking the seeds out of my clothes. I did get great looks at the black, white and red warbler that fans out its tail as it feeds.
But that was such a minor inconvenience compared with what Snetsinger endured through her years of traveling the world to see birds, such as the many bird-of-paradise species in Papua New Guinea and an eagle that lives in the Philippines and is so large that it snacks on monkeys.
In “Life List,” a biography about Snetsinger, author Olivia Gentile wrote about what the pioneering female birder encountered in foreign countries. For example, while seeking a bird-of-paradise in New Guinea, Snetsinger and her fellow travelers met hundreds of native people wearing headdresses, running toward them wearing war paint and carrying spears.
The travelers were caught in a war between two opposing native tribes. The birders survived the ordeal.
On another trip to New Guinea, Snetsinger was raped by five men carrying machetes. Gentile quoted Snetsinger as saying such horrible situations were not, “going to make me stay home and cringe in fear of doing what I’ve found to be the most rewarding pursuit of my life.”
In her autobiography, “Birding on Borrowed Time,” Snetsinger wrote when she boarded a plane to visit a new place in the wild to see birds, she experienced, “a feeling of virtual invincibility.”
Snetsinger died doing what she loved most, birding in Madagascar in November 1999. The trip and Snetsinger’s life ended when the driver of the van she was in lost control and hit a concrete post.
The Phoebe Snetsinger Memorial Garden is filled with native plants such as blazing star, which hummingbirds love. Volunteers designed and planted the garden in June. Just two months later, blazing stars, spotted Joe Pye weed and black-eyed Susans were blooming in bright late summer colors, as villagers officially dedicated the garden.
The village plans to expand the garden, and do more to honor Snetsinger and other famous villagers.
I’m really not a huge bird lister, and sometimes even think listers are a little over-the-top. But when I gaze at Snetsinger’s memorial garden, I am inspired by the woman whose legacy was about pursuing life with passion despite its many obstacles. It’s a lesson many of us, including me, need to remember.
Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the baiduhai and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to [email protected]