Emma Bickham Pitcher

PITCHER, Emma Bickham
of Kalamazoo, Michigan Passed away on Thursday, April 15, 2010 at Bronson Hospital. She was born September 20, 1915, daughter of Martin Hayes and Edith Reid Bickham in Chicago, Illinois. Emma grew up in the northern suburbs, close to Lake Michigan, graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka, spent two years at Grinnell College, Iowa, graduated from the University of Chicago in 1937, and married Alvin Pitcher in 1938. After five years in Buffalo NY and then five more at Denison University, Granville Ohio, they returned to Chicago, establishing their four children in their alma mater area. In 1962-63, the family lived in Germany, studying and traveling. In 1964 Emma started office work, retiring in 1981 as Dean of Students at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Vacations were spent learning bird banding, writing and teaching about birds and flowers, traveling around the west coast, Arizona, Florida, the New England Coast as she could. A particularly happy experience was an intensive summer of study in ornithology and botany at MSU's Kellogg Laboratory. Door County Wisconsin was another favorite study site. In 1987 she moved to Friendship Village at Kalamazoo, teaching and participating in the Michigan Botanical Club, Wild Ones, The Kalamazoo Nature Center, Audubon Societies of Kalamazoo, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan and the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, publishing three small books of nature study, and writing columns for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Summers of the '90's were spent, seven weeks each summer between freeze-ups, in nature study at Iqaluit, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. One special experience there was two weeks of watching Arctic birds while tent camping on sea ice 100 miles from land. In 2001 she traveled to Midway Atoll in the far western Pacific studying albatrosses, petrels, seals, and sea turtles. Beginning in 1998 Village residents began establishing their five acre Woods, and she relished that activity. Emma's arts interests included close-up photography of birds and flowers, poetry of Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver, paintings by Tasha Tudor and Georgia OKeeffe, and woodcuts by Albrecht Durer. Emma is predeceased by her parents, two infant sisters, three adult sisters and their husbands, and her former husband. She is survived by four children, Hugh Carol, Betsy, Charles Rhoda, and Cathy Cameron, nine grandchildren, three great grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews. In accordance with her wishes cremation has taken place. A Memorial Service at Friendship Village will be announced at a later date. Arrangements by the Langeland Family Funeral Homes, Memorial Chapel, 622 S. Burdick St. Memorials may be directed to Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy or to the Kalamazoo Nature Center. Please see www.langelands.com for online obituary, register book and condolences. Service for Emma will be June 20, 2010 at 2:00 PM in KIVA Room at Friendship Village.