Much has recently been written, and is being written, about Roger Tory Peterson; in fact, this week we are hosting Laura Jacques, a Connecticut artist assigned to illustrate a new RTP biography for children.
But what about Blanche Hornbeck, the seventh grade science teacher whom RTP credited with igniting his lifelong passion for the world of birds? We don't have much information about her but here's an interesting document, courtesy of Pamela Brown and the archives of Jamestown Public Schools, which evidently employed Miss Hornbeck only for school years starting 1919 and 1920 - just long enough to have that wonderful influence on young Roger Peterson:
The file card shows Miss Hornbeck's date of birth (January 1893), place of birth (Hartstown, a little village in northwestern Pennsylvania), and record of previous employment.
RTP never failed to credit Miss Hornbeck for what she did for him; and when the Roger Tory Peterson Institute was founded it was most assuredly his memory of her mentoring that prompted him to proclaim that RTPI would "teach the teachers."
Miss Hornbeck put into practice the educational philosophy that, "education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire," as William Butler Yeats put it.