"Wilson
(Willie) Bentley (1865-1931) was born on a farm in Jericho, Vermont, ... [an
area with] an average annual snowfall of over 120 inches."
"At age 15
he began drawing snowflakes while looking at them through his microscope – no
easy task, because most of them melted before he could complete a drawing. At
age 16 he learned about a camera that could be used with a microscope. His parents
saved the money--and when Willie was 17 they bought him the camera. It took him
over a year of failures before he finally achieved his goal – a photograph of a
snowflake, the first one ever taken." (Acts and Facts, 12/2011)
Bentley eventually
made thousands of such pictures for universities and science magazines.
"At age 66
Bentley published a large ... book of his photographs titled Snow Crystals ...
Less than two weeks after his book was published, he walked six miles home in a
snowstorm, caught pneumonia, and died two weeks later."
So, with
incredible irony, this man who devoted most of his life to the study of snow,
ultimately died from walking in a snowstorm!
Consider some
lessons we can learn from snow.
