Margaret Cosgrove, 91, in Dec. 2015 (science artist/writer)

[leno...@yahoo.com]

It's bizarre how many birth years she has; one major database claimed she
was born in 1926, while an AARP article says she was born in 1927.


http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/toledoblade/obituary.aspx?pid=177094400
(includes photo - this was reprinted in the NY Times on Jan. 3rd)

First half (it's a long one):

Margaret L. Cosgrove, formerly of Sylvania, Ohio, known to her Manhattan
neighbors for her extraordinary acts of kindness, tree planting and animal
rescues, passed away peacefully in her home in New York, New York on
December 15, 2015. She was 91.

Margaret was born June 3, 1924, in Sylvania, and grew up on Maplewood
Avenue. Margaret graduated from Burnham High School class of 1942;
The University of Chicago; American Academy of Art; and Chicago Art
Institute, fine arts degree; and inspired by her uncle and grandfather,
both doctors, she also graduated from Michael Reese Hospital School of
Nursing (Chicago). She was among the first six inductees to the Sylvania
Schools Academic Excellence Foundation Hall of Fame in 1992.

Margaret was an award winning artist and philanthropist and was accomplished
in several professions including being medical illustrator and author
and illustrator of children's books. She loved educating children on
science and, as her friend, Lynne Carlo, said "the science of nature and
the nature of science and of course, the art of nature". She became
an illustrator of medical publications and numerous medical illustrations
for books and magazines and for a heart exhibit at the 1970 American
Medical Association convention. The Dodd Mead & Company published about 20
of her books.

She was also a nurse and school teacher.

Margaret was a nurse at Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center
and served on the Cadet Nursing Corps during World War II. Her friend,
poet Celestine Frost, quoted Margaret saying that it was during that time
that she "learned to handle birth and death and just about everything
in between".

Margaret helped nurture creativity in the hearts of young people as art
and science teacher at New York's The Spence School from 1981 to 1989; many
of them to go on to fame and notoriety. Margaret shared and exemplified
the vision for the school with its founder, Clara B. Spence, as "a place
not of mechanical instruction, but a school of character where the common
requisites for all have been human feeling, a sense of humor and the spirit
of intellectual and moral adventure."

Margaret was part-founder of "Youngperson" news journal for children,
1986-90 and established an after-school and evening program for children
at Good Neighbor Community Center, East Harlem, New York during the 1970s.
She also served as a community volunteer at the neighborhood soup kitchen.

Margaret was dedicated to animal rescue and became a generous philanthropist
for national animal rescue groups and for humans victimized by sexual
abuse. Margaret also loved to share her good fortune with cab drivers
and others who worked hard and according to Ms. Carlo, "for their
beautiful smiles". She had also been known for such acts as buying a
battery for the electric wheelchair of a battered woman and for the time
she took an injured duck on the Long Island Railroad to Long Island to
a specialist for treatment. The duck survived.

Whether sketching in Central Park, Chinatown, the Botanical Gardens or
the subway; or dressing up in jewelry, scarves and her berets of all colors,
or speaking Latin to her pharmacist, Spanish to the men who stocked the
shelves at Pioneer Grocery, Margaret took great pleasure in living in New
York and loved for company to stop by to see her father's handmade tables
or taste her special chocolate.

Her friend Celestine Frost wrote of Margaret in a 2010 AARP article:

"Margaret was born in Sylvania, Ohio, a tiny town that was once a stop on
the Underground Railroad. Sylvania-its forests, its flowering meadows,
its noble ideals-strongly influenced my spirited friend. Her father was
a forester and engineer, her mother an educator. By the time she was ten
years old, Margaret knew the constellations and the birds and every tree in
the woods near Sylvania by its English and its Latin name..."

(snip)

http://www.carltonhobbs.net/tag/margaret-cosgrove/
(ten of her paintings)

2010 AARP article:

http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/arts-music/info-06-2010/cosgrove.html

Excerpt:

...I climb the long, steep stairs to her room. As I make conversation with
a timid cat and three patient pigeons, Margaret hauls a painting down from
a stack piled on the loft bed.

And... holy moly!

In a field of wildflowers and long green grass stands a little church.
Inside the congregation is singing, unaware that the children's choir is
so uplifted it is flying away. As they spiral ever higher, the children
are turning into birds--or are those angels? This is an enchanting painting,
a picture of Margaret's childhood and an ode to the human being's
harmonious existence in Nature.

It stands in terrible contrast to those that follow.

In "Start Here," a woman staggers through a labyrinth from which there
is no exit. The only sign of life--or hope--are the tiny wildflowers cracking
the concrete that paves the landscape. "U Didn't Listen" shows an abandoned
turnpike; alongside it are the stumps of what was once a forest of great
trees. In their stead is an endless line of steel communication towers. In
yet another painting, the skyline of a majestic city like New York looms low
on the horizon. Above it the stars (which look down upon us and witness
our deeds) have spelled out a single word:

B*E*T*R*A*Y*A*L

So this was "the work" that Margaret had to do before she died--and for
which she had demanded those crippling rounds of chemotherapy...

(snip)


Career: "Cornell University Medical College, New York City, medical artist,
1950; Roosevelt Hospital, New York City, medical artist, 1953-56; free-lance
book and medical illustrator. Former afternoon program director, Good Neighbor
Community Center, New York City."

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=900&q=%22margaret+cosgrove%22&oq=%22margaret+cosgrove%22&gs_l=img.3..0i30j0i24l2.1441.5260.0.5516.19.19.0.0.0.0.136.1886.12j7.19.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..0.18.1783.dODKfh1Gz6k#hl=en&tbm=isch&q=%22margaret+cosgrove%22+books&imgrc=_
(a few book covers)

WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:

All self-illustrated; all published by Dodd:

*Wonders of the Tree World, 1953, revised edition, 1970.
*The Wonders inside You, 1955.
*Wonders of Your Senses, 1958.
*Wonders under a Microscope, 1959.

*Wonders at Your Feet: A New World for Explorers, 1960.
*The Strange World of Animal Senses, 1961, revised edition, edited by J.C.W.
Houghton, Phoenix House, 1963.
*Your Hospital, a Modern Miracle, 1962.
*Strange Worlds under a Microscope, 1962.
*A Is for Anatomy, 1965.
*Eggs, and What Happens inside Them, 1966.
*Plants in Time: Their History and Mystery, 1967.
*Bone for Bone, 1968.

*Seeds, Embryos, and Sex, 1970.
*Messages and Voices: The Communication of Animals, 1974.
*Wintertime for Animals, 1975.
*Animals Alone and Together: Their Solitary and Social Lives, 1978.

*It's Snowing!, 1980.
*Your Muscles and Ways to Exercise Them, 1980.

Illustrator:

*Sigmund A. Lavine, Wonders of Animal Disguises, Dodd, 1962.
*Sheila L. Burns, Allergies and You, Messner, 1980.



Lenona.