Natural History Magazine
April 2018 Cover Story
Lessons from the Osprey Garden
Much of biologist-naturalist Paul Spitzer’s life has moved in time with the seasonal rhythms of one bird, the Osprey, and one place—the “Osprey garden.” In late spring he paddles his canoe into the Great Island saltmarsh, 500 acres of prime Osprey habitat where the Connecticut River flows into Long Island Sound. In this marshy inlet, Spitzer checks for action in nests among 35 Osprey platforms that have been erected here since the late 1950s.
Ink Publications
Cover Story
Focusing on Wildlife, Award Winning Photographer – Melissa Groo
Picture her with hat, long hair in a ponytail, and camouflage camera gear – her nearly six-feet stretched out somewhere on the grasslands of North Dakota waiting for that Western Grebe; or leaning out the window of a Range Rover in Tanzania to capture a suddenly climbing cheetah. This is how wildlife photographer, Melissa Groo spends her time, working to make herself invisible, practicing the patience of a Jane Goodall to get those intimate and extraordinary photos that have made her a prizewinner on the national scale.
Peter Arguimbau “Painter-Sailor in Search of Ships with Sails”
For years the New England marine painter, Peter Arguimbau has spent his summer months sailing the northeastern coast in search of seascapes, classic yachts, and tall ships in his 1935 classic 28-foot catboat the “Molly Rose,” outfitted as a studio. You can readily find this painter-sailor by the large black dot on his sail. “The reason for being on a boat,” the painter-sailor explains, “is you’re living at that dramatic moment when the sun is either setting or rising when you have the most dramatic effects.”
Following the Iridescent Trail of Louis Comfort Tiffany – Across Connecticut (Scroll to pages 46-55)
Mitchell Farm Equine Retirement “Greater Love Hath No Horse” (Scroll to pages 28-33)
Fistful of Stars (Scroll to pages 22-27)
Aidan Buss Mastering “The Ballet Line” (Scroll to pages 42-47)
Greenwich Magazine
Seven stories above the nave of Westminster Abbey, a new Royal museum in London honors Queen Elizabeth II, England’s longest reigning monarch. Tehre, in addition to the effigies of kings and queens, the marriage license of His Royal Highness Prince William and Catherine Middleton, a little piece of Greenwich has a royal place.
Tucked along a quiet street in the Chelsea neighborhood of London is the intriguing fabric design studio of a Greenwich continental, Nathalie Gimon Farman-Farma. Nathalie, who was raised in France before moving to Greenwich, attended Greenwich High and then Brown University. She left editing at the New Yorker to marry and settle in London, where she and her husband, Amir, are raising their two children. But fabric would soon become a passion and be fully realized in 2015 under her alluring banner of Décors-Barbares.
New York’s Central Park is about to welcome, albeit belatedly, the first women to its roster of twenty-two male statues. The statues will immortalize two suffragists who fought long and hard for women’s right to vote—Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Greenwich Time
Click here for an list of Anne’s GT stories
My Pen Pal, Remembering John Eisenhower
This New Year I’m mourning the loss of a pen pal, John Eisenhower, who passed away on my December birthday. He was 91, but his sudden death came as a shock. John was the only son of that giant of D-Day and President of the United States — Dwight D. Eisenhower — and I was privileged to call John a friend.
Lloyd Hull is a survivor of some tough action in WWII as a Naval Combat Information Center officer aboard the storied destroyer, the USS Laffey in both the European and Pacific theaters. “We survived bombarding Cherbourg, in France while being hit by a German 88-milimeter dud on our starboard side at the waterline, returning to Boston for repairs, then joining our division in the Pacific for the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, – ending up at Okinawa where we got hit by seven kamikaze and four bombs. We lost 40 percent of our crew off Okinawa. Why I’m alive today is a miracle.”
Greenwich Sentinel
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How to ID those Backyard Birds for Annual Bird Count
Follow along Audubon Greenwich Senior Naturalist Ted Gilman if you want to learn how to identify birds in your backyard, especially at this time of year. Gilman walks the walk of a bird, sings the song of a bird, and shows you the size, shape, color, and telltale markings of your backyard birds.
Greenwich Novelist Moore Spells Out Her Writing Process
Jean Moore, a Greenwich author with especial empathy and imagination, launched her second novel Tilda’s Promise recently at Barnes & Noble, in Stamford. She attracted fans and friends from the writing community of Greenwich, her fellow members of the Greenwich Pen Women, and her fellow volunteers of the Greenwich Library’s Oral History Project (OHP).
The New Jewel in Greenwich’s Crown
Splash news! The Greenwich Pool, the town’s 21st-century redo of an outdoor recreational pool, will soon be glittering in the summer sunshine, in Byram Park, in its spectacular setting overlooking Long Island Sound.
Thanks to Jenkins, Central Park Receives First Female Statues
In an elegant green glade in New York’s celebrated Central Park Mall, along Literary Walk, statues of the first two women to grace Central Park will take their place between stately surviving American elm trees. The women are renown suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Resolutions and Revelations in this New Year
The name of my game in 2019 is downsize. To help me along, I have an image of the last dwelling place of a dear friend, the late and great actress/dancer Madelyn O’Neil, whose creative husband, Horton O’Neil, gave us the Greek amphitheater in Cos Cob — to be reborn on the campus of Sarah Lawrence College. From a house filled with Inuit art, sculptures, and a swinging giraffe bone outside her front door, the widowed Madelyn moved to a retirement home near her children in Massachusetts, where I visited. She had one room, with a portrait of her distinguished naturalist father, Dr. John C. Phillips, a couple of brown pieces of furniture, and her smiling, happy face.
The New Jewel in Greenwich’s Crown
Splash news! The Greenwich Pool – the Town’s 21st-century redo of an outdoor recreational pool, will soon be glittering in the summer sunshine in Byram Park in its spectacular setting overlooking Long Island Sound.
“Life is a very precious thing,” Lloyd Hull says, “for me and for everyone around me.” Lesson number one he learned, “Nothing is worthwhile if it comes easy.”
A Healing Oasis for Mental Health Sufferers in the Backcountry
In the embracing library-office space of psychiatrist Dr. John Tamerin’s grand backcountry home, there’s a lot of healing going on, healing that takes different forms. Healing as in acceptance, empathy, understanding, forgiveness.
Branson Enjoying Time As Christ Church Interim Reverend
The Rev’d John Branson, two months now serving as interim rector of one of New England’s oldest and largest Episcopal churches, Christ Church Greenwich, appears to easily engage with his congregation, with an ability to communicate openly with his parishioners.
Archaeology and those who practice it can alter the way we see art and understand history, as illustrated by two recent guest speakers of the Archaeological Associates of Greenwich (AAG) at the Byram Shubert Library.
There’s Much For Us to Learn in Londontown
Traveling to London last week on freelance business, there was some concern over the recent spate of terrorism. But step into a black taxi and the driver puts you at ease with his friendly, well-mannered presence.
Yale University
Served as Co-Editor of the book compiling the publications of 267 graduates of the Yale Class of 1954. The book serves as a resource guide to every book and publication of those graduates, producing the two-volume set, a first time effort for a Class of Yale. The project took over a year to complete, during which time Anne W. Semmes worked closely with her Co-Editor, UK based Robert U. Redpath III.
“Anne W. Semmes kept me sane by acting as a back-up editor to our joint effort, Published Contributions of the Yale Class of 1954: a 1954 Class Council Project. In the two years we worked together, Anne mastered a number of editing issues: spelling, formatting of copy, adapting different bibliographic styles. Her main contribution was to create files for individual bibliographies and then sort them into faculty and subject groupings. One innovation (as far as Yale is concerned) is that internet sources (worldcat.org and google scholar) were used to search for bibliographies; Anne is familiar with that. I could count on her totally to spot mistakes.” Testimonial: Robert U. Redpath III, Yale Class of 1954
Anne W. Semmes 