Nature’s Chronicler: How Grief Transformed Edwin Way Teale’s Work

August 1, 1923

On this day, dear garden friends, the botanist Edwin Way Teale joined hands in matrimony with his beloved Nelly Imogene Donovan, a union that would prove as enduring as the ancient oaks they would later document together.

Like two complementary species finding their perfect ecological niche, these two had first encountered one another during Teale's collegiate days, when his passion for the natural world was already beginning to flourish.

Following their nuptials, the pair transplanted themselves to New York, where Teale continued cultivating his mind at Columbia University. His first professional roots took hold at Popular Science, where he wrote with the same precision he would later bring to his botanical observations.

As naturally as a seedling seeks the sun, Teale began pursuing nature photography alongside his writing duties. At the ripened age of 42, he pruned away the security of his position at Popular Science to branch out as a freelancer. His decision bore fruit almost immediately—by 1943, his volume By-ways to Adventure: A Guide to Nature Hobbies had earned the prestigious John Burroughs Medal for distinguished natural history writing, much like a prized specimen at a country garden show.

Tragedy struck the Teales during World War II when their son, David, was killed in Germany. Seeking solace in the healing embrace of the American landscape, the couple embarked on cross-country automotive pilgrimages. These journeys served as both balm to their wounded hearts and fertile soil for Teale's writing.

Their 1947 expedition—17,000 miles traversed in a black Buick that followed spring's gradual northern march—germinated into Teale's acclaimed work North With the Spring.

Like seasons following one another in nature's grand cycle, additional road trips yielded a bountiful harvest of books: Journey Into Summer, Autumn Across America, and Wandering Through Winter. The latter earned Teale the literary equivalent of a master gardener's certificate—the Pulitzer Prize in 1966.

It was Edwin Way Teale, that most observant of nature's chroniclers, who gifted us with these contemplations that any gardener would do well to take to heart:

"For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad."

"Any fine morning, a power saw can fell a tree that took a thousand years to grow."

"Nature is shy and noncommittal in a crowd. To learn her secrets, visit her alone or with a single friend, at most. Everything evades you, everything hides, even your thoughts escape you, when you walk in a crowd."

"Our minds, as well as our bodies, have need of the out-of-doors. Our spirits, too, need simple things, elemental things, the sun and the wind and the rain, moonlight and starlight, sunrise and mist and mossy forest trails, the perfumes of dawn and the smell of fresh-turned earth and the ancient music of wind among the trees."

Dear gardeners, is this not the very essence of why we dig our hands into the soil, why we rise at dawn to catch the first dewdrops on unfurling petals?

Teale understood, as we do, that to cultivate a garden is to commune with forces far greater than ourselves, to participate in a ritual as old as humanity itself.

One cannot help but wonder what Teale might think of our modern gardens, our hybrid varieties, our climate-controlled greenhouses.

Would he approve of our attempts to bend nature to our will, or would he encourage us to let our gardens grow a touch wilder, a bit more in tune with the natural rhythms he so revered?

As the season turns and you prepare your beds and borders, perhaps pause a moment to consider Teale's wisdom.

Allow your garden to harbor a few secrets, to maintain some of that shy, noncommittal nature he so cherished.

After all, is not the mystery of what might emerge from the soil as thrilling as the planned perfection of a manicured landscape?