On June 24, 1995 a memorial tribute for Helen Foote Buell was held at the Buell home in Shelborne Falls, MA. It was simple, dignified -- to commemorate a life well spent--on a summer afternoon high on a hillside looking SE across the mountains, brightened by wild flowers, with the songs of birds tugging my attention away from the eulogies. In Quaker style there were comments by family and friends about Helen's diverse interests, including poetry, words, people, and science, of her considerable efforts to help Murray Buellıs students, by editing their theses and encouraging them to finish, of her exploring nature, to wonder with Murray about the origin of a lone aspen sapling standing out on the prairie. As related by one of Murray's students, that aspen stood many feet from a woods. The Buells, their children, and he excavated its roots which ran for some distance at 6 inches below the surface and then dipped to 2 feet for several more feet only to resurface to a depth of 6 inches. The long trench and root led to an aspen tree in the small grove; the 2 feet deep diversion probably occurred during seasons of drought. Even in this memorial tribute, I was to learn some botany.

These tributes provided evidence of her many facets. As a team she and Murray provided lodging for graduate students, initiated the Rutgers Ecology Seminars before which for years seminar speakers were treated to home cooked meals and then ice cream with chocolate sauce after the seminar. There is much to emulate: her grace and courtesy, her curiosity and interest in the world around her and in people, her wonderful memory even at 93, the fact that she learned to use a computer at 84, her unfailing enthusiasm, and her fortitude even when her back caused her much pain and her hearing failed so that sitting through seminars was extremely frustrating. She provides a model for aging gracefully.....that life is not over at 50, 70, or even 90.

Many knew her better and longer than I. They could enumerate her scholarly works; she loved Pine Barrens desmids and made contributions with Murray to HMF / old field ecology. At Hutcheson Memorial Forest in the 1950ıs she and Murray had the vision to set up a series of successional plots that she monitored for many years after he died in 1975, and that continue to be monitored today. She touched many people in very individual ways. For my husband and me she was always a charming dinner companion, a wonderful exception to other friends who continuously lamented departmental politics or were otherwise negative. At 92 she shared her handpicked raspberries with us and perhaps what I shall miss most is that botanical ear. I can no longer call to say "Helen, guess what I found at HMF today? Habinaria lacera...in flower! Or, guess what I learned today?" She'd have liked to hear about all the neat things I learned while preparing lectures for a new Marine Botany course. I am fortunate that I had the opportunity to walk the fields of HMF with Helen Buell and to have been considered a friend.

Written by Dr. Mary A. Leck