How I Met My Husband



June 3, 1989, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Today Dan and I would have celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary.  It's nostalgic to look back at the 43 years since I met Dan.  Folks often ask how we met.  Well, we met on an airplane.  I first heard about Dan Livingstone when I was working on my M.A.T. at Duke University in the summer of 1963.  My professor, Dr. Bailey, told the class about one of his colleagues, Dan Livingstone, who had been attacked by a crocodile a few years earlier (1960 to be exact) and how he and his graduate student escaped.  I never saw/met Dr.Livingstone that summer nor in any of my four summers at Duke.


Later in the early 70s when I was working on my Ph.D. at N.C. State University here in Raleigh I was taking an ecology course and some of Dan's publications were assigned reading.  I thought, oh that's the fellow at Duke who escaped from the crocodile.


In the summer of 1973, I was attending the International Biological Congress in Boulder, Colorado, and was flying out of RDU heading to OHare in Chicago and later on to Boulder.  These were the days before assigned seats, and the plane wasn't very full.  I was sitting in a middle seat, with someone next to me in the window seat, when this gentleman sat down beside me in the aisle seat.  After we were airborne, I took out my program for the Boulder meeting to peruse, and this gentleman in the aisle seat looked over and said "Oh, you're going to the same meeting I am.  "I'm Dan Livingstone from Duke University."  My first comment to him was "Oh, you are the fellow who escaped from the crocodile!".  So it was ten years after I had first heard of this guy that I finally met him.


I had just finished my Ph.D. at N.C. State and had worked on a systematic study of grasses for my dissertation.  Dan told me about his work studying pollen in the sediments he had taken from African lakes and how there were grass cuticles (leaves) in the mud, and he wondered if they could be useful in reconstructing the past vegetation and thus the past climate of Africa.  It seemed like an intriguing possibility.


Later that fall Dan invited me over to Duke to take a look at the grass leaves in his lake sediments, and sure enough when you looked at these fossil leaves with a scanning electron microscope, you could see microscopic features on the leaves that made them identifiable.  By the next summer he and I had submitted a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation to get money to support me in the summers to do research in the lab there.  Sixteen years later after a long friendship and many years working together in the lab, we were married.  And the rest is history, and I might add what a wonderful history it was. 


Dan passed away in March of this year, and his death has left a huge hole in my heart, but I have wonderful memories that will comfort me  for the rest of my life.

June 3, 1989 in Halifax, Nova Scotia on our wedding day.

 Happy Anniversary my dearest Dan, I wish you were here.

Protection of MacKenzie Cove

Lawn Party celebrating protection of MacKenzie Cove.*

During our stay this summer The Nova Scotia Nature Trust celebrated the protection of MacKenzie Cove here in rural Cape Breton by hosting a Lawn Party at our house in Marble Mountain.  Dan has donated his property to the Nature Trust with a life estate for the children through their lifetime.  Consequently,  this beautiful coastal property will be protected in perpetuity.

View of pond and house from beach.

About a hundred folks dropped by for the celebration.

Dennis Garratt and neighbor Yvonne.

Dan and Michealette

Dennis and Maggie.

Dan addressing the group. (Photo by Donald MacFadyen.)

Dan receives appreciation plaque from Dennis.

Silvan receives door prize from Dennis.

Bird Walk.

Following the celebration, Dennis Garrett led a bird walk across the property.

*Photography by Carabin Photography unless otherwise noted.

Escape from Crocodile: Part Two

Joe (left) and Dan a few days after the crocodile attack in Africa.

When I got home yesterday, I had received this photo from Joe Richardson of him and Dan taken a few days after their escape from the crocodile.  He also included a newspaper account of their escape.  I will include it.  I hope it is legible.

 

Newspaper account of Dan & Joe's escape.  (It may be hard to read, but I will include it anyway.  At least you can read the head line.)

Tasted And Rejected by a Nile Crocodile

Dan the day after the crocodile attack.  Photo courtesy of Joe Richardson.

On November 11th each year we celebrate a special event.  It was on November 11, 1960 that my husband, Dan Livingstone, and Joe Richardson escaped from the jaws of a Nile crocodile.  Dan was a young research biologist at Duke University and Joe was his graduate student.  It was their first of many trips to Africa. 

Dan and Joe were in the middle of Lake Chishi, Zambia, in a rubber boat taking soundings of the lake (measuring the depth of the water at various positions) in preparation for taking cores of the lake for ecological study.  Suddenly a crocodile attacked, first scraping Joe across the buttocks.  Joe jumped in the water, and the croc came up under the boat. As Dan was trying to kick the croc away it grabbed Dan by the foot through the bottom of the boat.  Now the boat was sinking, but Dan managed to kick loose and he too joined Joe in the water.  Fortunately the crocodile was intent upon sinking the boat and stayed with the boat.  Joe and Dan swam for over two hours before safely reaching the shore.  Both have made many trips back to Africa in connection with their research without encountering another crocodile.

Dan in Africa in the early 1980s.

Dan, this September, enjoying a tour of Italy.

Dan and Joe are known as the "only ecologists who have been tasted and rejected by a Nile crocodile."