I remember Mrs T and when she would say " Say hello to Mr. Egret" or Mr Snail. She was wonderful, thoughtful of nature and had a great passion for teaching us kids. I always looked forward to her trips. My favorite was going out to the tide pools. I remember too watching her films in grade school at assembly as well.
Mrs. Terwilliger was a huge part of my nature education. She came to our schools and let us hold snakes, stuffed owls and raccoons. My mom worked as a docent with her for awhile and we always had small dead birds (often cedar waxwings) in our freezer that we were saving to give to Mrs. Terwilliger. The birds that I can identify today are because Mrs. T taught me-ducks are "always in a hurry, always in a hurry." I know about eating miner's lettuce, pickleweed, and nettles as well as how to recognize poison oak in all of its phases. We went on innumerable hikes and nature walks on the mountain, in the wetlands, and in the headlands. I remember going to see Monarch butterflies in a stand of trees in Strawberry behind McDonald's before a condo complex replaced the eucalyptus grove. Mrs. Terwilliger was always hands on and explained things in a way that kids could understand and remember. She drove her beat up van filled with all sorts of creatures both living and stuffed. She wasn't like the slick animal presentations that come to schools today, but was more like a lovable old granny in grubby tweeds with the floppy hat who made cool animal noises and taught us about all the things we could eat in the wild and what plants to avoid-"leaves of three, let them be."
Hopefully you'll enjoy the new video I just posted of Mrs. T in the Spotlight section. It really bought back memories for me -- especially passing her animals around a circle of school kids.
As a child in the 60s and 70s I participated in many of her weekend nature adventures. We would go to various parts of Marin and she would tell us about the unique flora and fauna found there. I remember she was always picking up rocks to see "who was living underneath", but always stressed that you've got to put them back as you found them so as not to disturb them too much. It was a wonderful introduction to nature for a child growing up in Marin and gave me a deeper appreciation for the wide variety of wildlife surrounding us. I don't know if there's any equivalent of Mrs. Terwilliger now, but it was fun to go with family and friends on a weekend and explore.
The starting point for several of the hikes was what is now called the Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary in Strawberry, next to Blackie's Field. She would take us out into the field there to show us "who was living there" as she put it, and then probably down to the beach to learn about life at the tide line. I remember that she taught us about Duckweed in the marshes by having us pick a little and chew on it to discover that it was very salty since it lives in salt water.
