My Friend Phoebe

Phoebe Snetsinger in the Spring of 1981 (sketch of photo by Cindy Kerchmar).

 It has been quite a few years now since  I received a call from a young woman named Olivia Gentile. She was writing a biography of Phoebe Snetsinger and wanted to interview me. She came by the house and we spent some time talking at the kitchen table. Over the years, I wondered what became of Olivia’s project. When my friend Eleonora DiLiscia told me last spring that there was a new biography on Phoebe, I immediately looked it up and saw that it was, Life List by Olivia. This week Olivia is coming to the Evanston North Shore Bird Club to talk about the book.

I owe my friendship with Phoebe in part to a Snowy Owl.  Sometime during the winter of 1976 several St Louis birders drove to Chicago to look for that owl and assorted other birds. Phoebe was the leader of that group.  That fall, I was to start graduate school in St Louis. Some friends told me about the winter visit of the St Louis folks and encouraged me to contact Phoebe.

The first time we met was on one of the Thursday field trips that the Webster Grove Nature Study Society sponsored. Phoebe and I hit it off well and were soon on our way to becoming close friends.

Phoebe had a wide range of interests, although as she became more focused on birds, these may have waned. One night, we went to the Washington University observatory to observe some celestial phenomenon. (Years earlier she had a published an article in Sky and Telescope.)We came back to my apartment to talk and laugh. I told her I had Eurasian tree sparrows in the neighborhood and some years later I noticed a man with binoculars walking around the building. He said he had met Phoebe on a pelagic off Maine. She gave him my address as a good place to see this St. Louis-area specialty.

Then was also the time that Lynn Hepler (a dear graduate school friend), Phoebe and I had a hankering for raccoon, derived probably from Lynn and I reading Edith Rombauer’s account of preparing game in any early edition of her classic cookbook. (I don’t think any of us had ever tried it before.)  Early one morning in pursuit of our quarry we headed to Soulard, St. Louis’ wonderful farmers market. We did find a vender who offered raccoon, but the animal for sale weighed over 30 pounds and cost well over 30 dollars. We looked at each other, and Lynn commented that for so much money we could get aged prime rib. So we settled for farm raised rabbit. 

I recall when Phoebe was diagnosed with her cancer and given a year to live. After talking to an oncologist who urged her to undergo some experimental therapy, she declined, preferring to spend whatever time she had left pursuing what then had become her great passion. (The impression she picked up from the doctor was that in his view she was more a needed data point in his research than someone who could be helped.) To understand what followed, it is important to remember that she was living under the guillotine of metastatic melanoma, and that the thread holding the blade could unravel at anytime. After a while she came to believe that her birding kept her alive. (Her memoir was entitled Birding on Borrowed Time)

We talked by phone the summer of 1981 about our respective preparations–me for the Illinois Bar Exam, and she for a trip to Australia. I told her that it was impossible for me to think beyond the exam- the enormousness of the test and its consequences imposed a tiny horizon on the future. Referring to her profound health challenges, she said she too was in a situation where it was impossible to see an expansive future. My perspective on the obstacle confronting me changed dramatically in the wake of her words.

I was one of the first two or three people Phoebe called upon her return from the infamous New Guinea trip in 1986.  She enthused about seeing the Kagu on New Caledonia, but when she and her guide David Bishop arrived in West New Britain, her tale became darker. Due to an errant radio report, local residents believed that the two of them were murderers. One time they were encircled by hostile locals and only David’s quick thinking and tongue enabled them to escape harm; a little later they encountered another angry crowd along the road as they drove towards town. Listening to this, I was amazed: “My god, Phoebe, that is awful.” Her reply: “That’s nothing, wait until New Guinea.”

The two birders caught an early flight and headed towards Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Over the course of the next two days, they birded several areas near the city, finishing at the sewage ponds. As they drove out, they found a log blocking the road. Five men with machetes approached the car, and one smashed the rear window with a rock. Phoebe and David were forced into the back seat, among the pieces of glass. As the men drove off, Phoebe told me that what went through her mind during that terrifying ride was that whatever happened, she had seen the Kagu. She was so thankful that she had sent post cards to family attesting to that fact.

As she proceeded to tell what happened, I was speechless, almost in tears. I so expected that something would intervene to save her from the horrible violence that seemed imminent. Here she was calmly telling me the story- but in fact there was no intervention and the attacks were consummated, “methodically, as if they were fulfilling a perverse obligation.” (Life List, 147.) (Why Phoebe and David were allowed to live is a mystery.) This remains the only time in my life that a woman has ever shared with me an account of such an experience, and I still get shivers when I think about it. I also felt angry and maybe even ashamed that I am of the same gender as those who do such things. I couldn’t read her mind, of course, and who knows what of the rape lingered with her, but in her telling of the story she manifested the mental and emotional strength that enabled her to complete her mission of seeing 8,000 birds. I do take umbrage with anyone who objects to the way she handled the experience- that she was out of touch with her feelings or in denial. People vary tremendously in how they deal with tragedy, and proceeding in a less common way does not necessarily mean that it is any less effective or restorative.

Phoebe called me in August 1996, promising that she would let me know if any good birds turned up in the St. Louis area. A couple of days later, true to her word, she phoned about some Wood Storks on the Illinois side of the river. My friend, Renee Baade and I left early the next morning, and met Phoebe, who showed us the birds.

And that would be the last time I saw Phoebe, for she died three years later on the west coast of Madagascar when the driver of her van fell asleep at the wheel. I would have sworn that we saw each other again but such is not the case. And for not having made the effort, I feel so deeply remiss. But I did attend the family memorial that was held for her in December 1999.

Since the publication of Life List and even before, I heard criticism of Phoebe from surprising sources. The complaint was that Phoebe spent a fortune pursuing her “narcissistic” goal that promoted neither science nor conservation. It is my view that very little birding does either. Most of us go on a few organized bird counts every year, but the crowds that show up for rarities or congregate at Cape May or Crane Creek on a May weekend are doing it for the sake of the game or whatever other personal pleasures they derive. And by exploring remote areas, she and her guides undoubtedly did add to the knowledge of many little known species.

Olivia’s book makes it clear that to do what Phoebe accomplished takes an incredible single mindedness and devotion that few of us could muster. Phoebe told me of an excursion to Japan she took with two leaders and maybe three participants. They were together constantly; some nights they all slept in the same room. Yet months later when one of the leaders confessed to her that he was not getting along with the other and almost left, she was amazed she had not even noticed. If she had worried about personalities, food, lodging, pain, and other “trivialities” of life, she would have soon been distracted from the goal of seeing as many birds as possible.

And not only did she accomplish the goal but she did it as well as anyone could. Through exhaustive study, she knew the birds before she left on a trip; when she was along, it was like having an extra leader. And unlike some of those who boast of high bird lists, she was absolutely scrupulous as to her identifications. She would not count the bird unless she was certain.

Olivia’s book includes accounts of how Phoebe missed a daughter’s wedding, her mother’s funeral, and was cruel to her patient husband by largely abandoning him during the years she pursued her obsession. I remember Phoebe discussing a lot of these issues over the years and her viewpoints always seemed eminently reasonable to me.  But to some who read of those years as they are condensed in one volume, her decisions may seem to be have been seriously flawed. And indeed most of the people whom I know who have read the book have so concluded. I am saddened by that.

I would also point out that to do something as spectacular as Phoebe did (and seeing 8,000 birds was spectacular, even if you deny that it is worthy of praise) you have to put aside many aspects of life that the rest of us value highly. This would go for most of those driven souls who, say, build corporations (like her father) or attain high political office. These folks are not like most people but if the rewards they garner are financial, they are apt to be celebrated. It is harder to honor those who reap rewards of another realm.  

I was therefore pleased that when I did read Life List, I found it a largely balanced and nuanced treatment of my beloved friend. Olivia had access to Phoebe’s personal papers and was therefore privy to facts that I either never knew or have forgotten. She succeeds in providing different perspectives to Phoebe’s complicated life. But if all you know of Phoebe is what you read here, it seems your opinion is likely to be negative; I can read the same words and feel even closer to this remarkable woman.

          

Tags: Life List, Olivia Gentile, Phoebe Snetsinger