Peter Sauer

Sauer, Peter SALEM, N.Y. Peter Hans Sauer was born December 6, 1937 in New York City and died in Salem on January 30, 2009. Peter was raised in Wilton, Conn. He was educated at Choate, and graduated from Washing-ton and Lee University with a B.A. in biology in 1960. He volunteered for military service with the Vermont National Guard and worked as a cook at Fort Dix, an experience he considered a vital part of his education. He married Ruth Barngrove in 1963 and taught at the Woodstock Country School in Vermont. In 1966, he returned to New York City where he taught science at the Bank Street College of Education and published two science books for children, Sea Shell Towns and Seasons. From 1969-1979, he was director of Bank Street's Day Care Consultation Service. The service had a great impact on American education, forming embryonic ideas that would mature as the Head Start program. During this time he wrote, with Bank Street staff, the influential essay Toward Comprehensive Child Care. From 1979 to 1990, Peter was executive director of Wave Hill, a 28-acre cultural and educational institution located above the Hudson River in Riverdale, the Bronx. Defining its mission as one of exploring relationships between nature and culture, Peter developed programs including garden-making, landscape history and design, the visual and performing arts, archaeology, and forest restoration - an approach that made Wave Hill a model for public land use. During his tenure, Peter also helped establish the Catalog of Landscape Records in the United States, a computerized directory of landscape design and history. He also helped to initiate a study of the natural and human history of a portion of the Hudson's eastern shore, including a major archaeological survey. In 1990, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the College of Mount St. Vincent. In 1991, Peter moved to Salem, where he joined the committee that founded the Historic Salem Courthouse Preservation Association and became its fourth president. He was an associate editor and editorial board member of Orion magazine from 1990-2006. He contributed many articles and reviews, as well as two columns: Placemarks (1991-1999) and RealEcology (2003-2004). Orion provided a platform for Peter's imaginative thinking on matters of culture and nature, from which he challenged readers and colleagues to rethink and expand the goals of the environmental movement. He maintained that all of his pre-Orion careersoyster biologist in Florida, army cook at Fort Dix, school teacher in Vermont, organizer of community controlled day care centers in New York City, and director of a public garden in the Bronxwere one seamless exploration of relations between culture and nature. Peter's sister, Leslie predeceased him. He is survived by his brother, Rolf; wife, Ruth; children, Gretchen, Hannah and Christopher; and two grandchildren, Jamie and Lucy. A celebration of Peter's life will be held on Saturday, February 7 from 2:00 5:00 p.m. at the McClellan Funeral Home, 19 East Broadway, Salem, N.Y. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to Friends of the Bancroft Public Library, PO Box 515, Salem, NY 12865. For directions to the funeral home or to share a memory of Peter, please visit mcclellanfuneralservice.com