Glorious Times
Adventures of the Craighead Naturalists
Midwest Book Review Reviewer's Choice
by Tom Benjey
published by The University of Montana Press
“What the Kennedys are to politics, the less-famous Craigheads are to nature -- a prolific and accomplished clan.â€Â Kirkus Reviews
264 pages, 7, 67 b/w photos, 13 illustrations, index, appendix, glossary, 26 softcovers per case
softcover
ISBN 10: 0990974898
ISBN 13: 9780990974895
$18.95
- Tom Benjey's Glorious Times tells the fascinating and important story of an American clan of Scots-Irish that settled in the early 1700s in Pennsylvania. From this clan came an astonishing number exceptional people, many of whom dedicated their lives to nature. This book even poses the question as to whether this family had a special "Naturalist DNA". It covers many generations, but appropriately focuses most attention on the famous siblings Frank Jr., John, and Jean (Craighead George).
| Glorious Times
Adventures of the Craighead Naturalists |
| Soon after starting college, Frank and John made front page news in the November 12, 1935 Penn State Collegian article "Twin Brothers Revive Ancient Sport of Falconry on Campus." Apparently Ulysses caught a budding reporter's attention when the twins released him from his perch in the back-yard of their apartment. The tiercel was the only bird they brought with them; they had given away or released all the others. The article also mentioned they previously had articles published in American Forests, Nature Magazine, science bulletins, and newspapers before starting college. Anyone on campus who didn't know who they were before certainly knew after this.
Just before Christmas break, they took Ulysses out to the Penn State golf course for some exercise, but he gave two unlucky golfers exercise they hadn't expected when he dive-bombed them. Frank and John gave occasional lectures about falconry on campus because the sport was virtually unknown to American college students and faculty at that time. After graduating in 1939 with A.B.s in Science, John and Frank had much to do before heading to Ann Arbor for graduate school. Houghton Mifflin had agreed to publish Hawks in the Hand: Adventures in Photography and Falconry, but much work was needed to get their manuscript and 57 photos ready for publication. Penn State Professors Edward Nichols and Gerald Stout gave them support, moral and otherwise, preparing their manuscript for publication. The book put to press, Frank Jr., John, Ulysses, and Nancy (a recently acquired prairie falcon) headed west and then north to start graduate work at the University of Michigan. With financial aid from scholarships, the twins breezed through their master's program in Ecology and Wildlife Management in a year without neglecting their raptor research. They also wrote their second National Geographic article, "In Quest of the Golden Eagle," for the May 1940 issue. However, Frank and John had something even more exciting coming up that summer, a trip to India to visit Bapa. Before they left for India, they released all of their birds except Ulysses. -from Chapter 10: Falconry |
 |
|
|
A chance statement at a talk on the Carlisle Indian School led to Dr. Benjey researching the life of Lone Star Dietz and writing the biography of the most controversial person to grace the sidelines of a football field. Doing the research exposed him to enough information about the legendary Carlisle football program to whet his interest in learning more. That led to him writing Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs: Jim Thorpe & Pop Warner's Carlisle Indian School football immortals tackle socialites, bootleggers, students, moguls, prejudice, the government, ghouls, tooth decay and rum. In 2009 Dr. David Masland suggested he write a book about his lifelong friends, the Craigheads. His initial investigation convinced him that this was indeed an extraordinary family. A health crisis intervened, resulting in him writing Prostate Cancer and the Veteran. At last, Glorious Times: Adventures of the Craighead Naturalists is finished. |