Member Articles

50 Years with the Boston Malacological Club

By George Buckley - AKA CLAM

  Little did I know when I attended my first meeting of the revered Boston Malacological Club as a high school student over five-decades ago that I would still be coming to meetings having also worked for Harvard University in some capacity during all of those intervening fifty plus years.  My parents had discovered the Mollusk Department at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (in the days of no Internet!) when I was a high school student interested in seashells.  Drs. Bill Clench and Ruth Turner immediately took me under their guidance and encouraged me to join the BMC and volunteer on Saturdays sorting shells in the Mollusk Department .  To join the then venerable BMC you needed to have at least two members vouch for you by cosigning your application for membership.  I believe that I had Bill Clench and Henry Russell !  Soon I was working summers in the dept. as casual help and then part-time during the school year and quickly helping with all sorts of Mal Club duties added to my schedule. 

      Barbara Crowley was our beloved treasurer (followed by the dedicated work of Dave Gorman, Warren Graff and now Martha Chiarchiaro) and Henry Cutler was one of our senior members who made things work with Harvard as he was Director of Harvard Real Estate at the time (his office was part of a whole floor at Holyoke Center!).   Karl Jacobson was our iconic auctioneer and it was from him that I inherited the job some years later having learned well under his leadership.  Henry Russel gave chapter and verse of the latest conchological literature, often in Latin, having spent the afternoon in the MCZ library while his wife Libby made delicious chocolate chip cookies for the meetings.    Ruth Turner, Bill, and Henry sat up front to the right with Dick Johnson just behind them.   I was often sent ‘upstairs to ‘the dept.’ to get whatever had been forgotten as well as to set up the most important feature of the meeting, the large coffee pot. The officers kept things rolling on a tight schedule and there was a long list of valued members who took on the roles of club leadership.   The youngest members were given the task of opening the door as members arrived.  I proudly took my post with Kenneth J. Boss, who was then a graduate student. Ken who felt the job was demeaning, promptly left me alone with the task but as a result, I did get to know the members pretty well.   I was soon joined by a dynamic young Clench freshwater acolyte, Samuel Liberty Harvey Fuller, a Harvard undergrad who was wise far beyond his years and who soon became a good friend.  Richard Winslow Foster was a dynamic force, a dear friend of Ruth’s, a major supporter of the Mollusk dept. and world-wide traveler and collector who often brought   ‘extra’ specimens for BMC members as did Dick Johnson who was collecting  fresh water Unionids all over the South Eastern US.

The BMC had some fun outings over these years from the arrival of the new research vessel at Woods Hole and Ruth Turner’s lab there, to the rocky shores of New Hampshire to a number of trips to the Nahant Marine Science Center where then President Trish Morse was Assistant Director,  to many member’s summer  homes near some sort of water including to my then just finished cottage in Orleans near Pleasant Bay.  My job on many  of the outings was to carry the cooler of beer for Bill and the two Henry's . Mabel Black Label was the liquid of choice. which I never developed a taste for!

  Our original resident marine artist was Key Lawrence who made all sorts of marine life creations utilizing seashells and now we have Kristina Joyce and Mathilde Duffy making beautiful marine art.

  We celebrated our grand 75th Anniversary with Tucker Abbot as the featured guest, helped with the creation and First Day of Issue ceremonies at Harvard for the country’s first sea shell stamps and had a spectacular sea shell exhibit on top of the New England Aquarium’s then new huge floating sea lion barge.  It has been fun to recreate some of that magic with a shell exhibit at the Boston Sea Rovers ocean symposium.

We have had a couple of hundred speakers in my decades with the BMC, some memorable some not.  We had presenters that all but shouted their presentations while others mumbled or spoke so softly that no one had an idea what they had said!  Some spoke for mere minutes and some others rambled on for nearly two hours.  Ken Read , Trish Morse and Andy Martinez took us on great adventures with dazzling underwater photography followed years later by others including Scott Robichaud and myself.  We have had live land snails and clams from my students and others, a dissection or two and some  dynamic thumb twisting Origami thanks to our resident origami  genius Mike LaFosse.

  We have spun the Molluscan dial with programs on  Nudibranchs with Henry Russel, Bob Bullock and Trish Morse,  Cephalopods with  Karl Howard and Roger Hanlon, mollusks of Australian by Barry Wilson,  the West Coast with Myra Keen, Freshwater clams with Dick Johnson, Kirk Wright and Eileen Yokinen , things that didn’t look like  mollusks with Amy Sheltema, deep sea clams with Ruth Turner and shallow water scallops with Kevin Stokesbury and Dick Bailey;  Richard Trefrey taught us about Fractals and Mel Carriker  and I discussed "Radula the teeth of Mollusks"  with Mel even having a recording of Urosalpinx drilling into a clam.   Whenever possible Bill and Ruth made sure that any ‘visiting firemen ‘, guest researchers in the Mollusk dept. would come at a time when they could make a presentation to the Mal Club, giving them a free bed at one of their houses!

Never did I think that I would have a role in not one but TWO Centennial celebrations let alone both in the SAME year!  But so it was that the Boston Malacological Club had it ‘s 100th Anniversary the same year as the Harvard University Extension School where I was Assistant Director of the Sustainability and Environmental Management program.    Our 100th was made very special by the Conchologist of America annual meeting being held in Boston which was accomplished through the great work and yeoman efforts of a dedicated BMC crew!  I shall never forget their auction when a Neptunia decemcostata went for over 100 dollars. I don’t know who was more flabbergasted, me as auctioneer or the BMC members who were there!

  In its latest formulations, the BMC has benefited from dedicated members and officers as well as  donations for its annual and silent auctions curated by Don Robak,   a dynamic December 'Cigar Box shell Show', engaging 'Shell of the Month' presentations by members,  excellent conchological  and historical malacology reports now done by Ed Nieberger, Jay Cordiero, Alan Grant and myself,  a popular monthly raffle led by Faith Rubin and Val Gould ,  a series of dynamic malacological presentations though-out the year, a fun May fund raising auction followed a  well-attended field trip in June.  We now do extensive public education programs from Kristina Joyce's extensive library work, Sheila Nugent's dynamic shell exhibits, the wonderful exhibits in concert with the Boston Sea Rovers ocean conference, our work with the Harvard Museum of Natural History 'I love Science ' program with hundreds of attendees and my "Seashells in the Classroom” and  "Every Seashell has a Story" presentations to schools and groups.  We often give away donated shells and those collected over hundreds of hours of beach combing by members like Jeanne Cavanaugh who has probably covered every square foot of Sanibel Island’s beach!  We even have a Website and Facebook page!  who would have thought?  We have been joined many years by numbers of my students as we were by Ruth’s and Bill’s so many years ago .

It is neat to continue my 50 years in the newly updated MCZ Rm 101-the first major renovation in some 50 years! 

Cheers,

George ‘CLAM’ Buckley

Dr. Ruth Turner - Former Mal Club President and World Famous Scientist

BY George Buckley

The 50th Anniversary of Boston Malacological Club's Dr. Ruth Turner's first Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ALVIN submarine dive was Friday, August 13th, 2021, AND it was on Friday, August 13th, 1971 that she became the first female scientist to dive in WHOI's deep diving submarine ALVIN to conduct scientific research—two firsts on one auspicious day! And, very good for the WHOI/ALVIN program as Ruth's wood-eating teredo research, published in SCIENCE, was some of the first deep-sea research to show the value of using manned submersibles for research AND was funded for decades by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). USN Admiral Richard Petinger said, "We should have named a ship after her!” 

WHOI scientist and Boston Sea Rover Bob Ballard was instrumental in making it all happen. He said, "It was her research, was fully funded, and she should be allowed to dive." ALVIN Group Leader and Boston Sea Rover Barry Walden was very supportive, as was Crew Chief George 'Brodie' Broderson (I had a small role—driving Ruth to the sub/ship on time, as she did not drive, and we were always late leaving Harvard! ) It got a bit easier when we opened a lab at the nearby Marine Biological Laboratory. Little did I know then that that job would become a major part of my 'portfolio’! 

For quite a while, Ruth was the deepest-diving female scientist and had the most dives for a female scientist. It was Brodie who christened Ruth' LADY WORMWOOD' on one of the research cruises; she was beloved by the ship's crew! Later, former student Polly (Mary) Windsor credited her with being 'A BIOLOGIST PAR EXCELLENCE' in dedicating her book about Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology to her. The US Office of Naval Oceanography dedicated their treatise on Marine Biodeterioration to her; the Boston Sea Rovers awarded her 'Diver of the Year' Honors, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution presented her with their 'WOMAN PIONEER in OCEANOGRAPHY' Award. She was one of Harvard's very first female recipients of the prestigious Alexander Agassiz Professorship. The Oceanography Seminar Room at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology is named in her honor.

Ruth's mottos were "KNOW YOUR ANIMALS" and "DO WHAT SETS YOU ON FIRE!".

Good advice then and now!

George Buckley