Thanks Leslie,
Cecelia was indeed a great lady; she stayed in touch and supported The
Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum until the very end. Early this year, she
visited and fully transferred ownership to the Museum of a magnificent cameo
shell that was on loan (and on display) from her since the days when Tucker
was our founding director.
We kept crossing paths in shell shows and other events, mostly due to our
mutual interest in shelling and on the east coast shell club circuit events.
One of my favorite stories involving Cecelia: In the early 2000s, I used to
go surfing in Brevard County, usually Melbourne Beach and vicinities. On
this particular morning, I was out on Satellite Beach. After the usual
small-wave session, I got back in on the beach only to see this lady holding
a yellow umbrella, walking along the water's edge. Upon mutual close
inspection, she turned to me and said something like "Hi José, here we are,
two shell people, but doing very un-shelly things, you with your surfboard,
and me, looking for sea beans."
The Shell Museum and its family (and yours truly in particular) will sorely
miss the lady with the yellow umbrella.
Kind regards,
José
________________________________________________________
José H. Leal, Ph.D., Director and Curator
The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum
Editor, The Nautilus
www.shellmuseum.org
3075 Sanibel-Captiva Road
Sanibel, FL 33957 USA
(239)395-2233
fax (239)395-6706
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
-----Original Message-----
From: Conchologists List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Leslie Crnkovic
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 10:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CONCH-L] In Memory of Cecelia Abbott
Cecilia was such a colorful woman who lived a rich long life.
Though I first met here at COA 1990, I had the pleasure of getting to know
Cecelia when I was researching my "Compendium" project about 8 years ago.
She was graciously helpful in providing information, stories, photos and
memorabilia which was incorporated into the exhibit. She came to see the 64
ft exhibit when I displayed it in Melbourne in 2004 and brought me some of
Tucker's lesser known publications. More than once, she invited me to come
up and stay with her if I could, but the logistics never worked out.
Most people are not aware that, although Tucker gets all the credit, Cecelia
is the true main author of "Compendium of Landshells". She graciously
provided me with a double-signed copy at the show. In 1989 her and Tucker
traipsed the south pacific for Land Shells while at the same time
researching for his book "Seashells of South East Asia" which is
co-dedicated to her. Cecelia was responsible for them going to Papua New
Guinea and getting photos of the Manus Island Green Tree Snail/Emerald Green
Snail (Papustyla pulcherrima) and making it the "Poster Child" of snails
through this book.
Cecelia played a major part in everything Tucker published while they were
together, she was his work-horse at the typewriter, transcribing his notes,
proofing, and on-and-on.
Back in March 2010 she made a pre-arranged grand entrance at the Sanibel
Show along with her family, where she spent time with us, and in particular
with S. Peter Dance. Then off for a visit to The Bailey-Matthews Shell
Museum.
In the last couple years it was discussed to have one more printing of the
"Compendium of Seashells", but last I heard the plates were still somewhere
lost in China, whereas on the passing of agent in NY that handled it for
Cecelia, the records of its whereabouts could not be found. Additionally,
with closure of Odyssey Publishing and the passing of John Jackson (Nov
2009), the Compendium was without a current publishing/distribution arm.
Cecilia shared an overview of her life history with me, before and during
her time with Tucker. Though I forget names, before Tucker she was married
to the gentleman who designed the cockpit for NASA's Space Shuttle while
working for Lear. I heard she was also a model in here younger days...
So much more could be said. Cecilia's contributions will not be
forgotten....
Sincerely,
Leslie A. Crnkovic
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