PEOPLE IN AMERICA – December 29, 2002: Remembering Six Important People
By Jill Moss
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Program, People in America. Today we tell about six
important Americans who died during the past year.
VOICE ONE:
Remembering the many famous and important Americans who died during the year is difficult because there are
so many worth discussing. There is not enough time to remember everyone. However, we will tell about several
Americans whose involvement in society was important and valuable.
We begin with the person likely to be missed most by young Americans. Millie Benson wrote books for young
people. The main character in each of her books is a sixteen-year-old girl named Nancy Drew who solved
mysteries. These books were extremely popular for many years. They gave teenage girls the idea that they could
do anything that boys could do. This was especially important at a time when women were struggling for equality
with men.
VOICE TWO:
Millie Benson began writing the "Nancy Drew" books in nineteen-thirty. She wrote twenty-
three of the first twenty-five stories in the series under a false name, Carolyn Keene. This was
because Mizz Benson signed an agreement with her publisher promising never to make public
her identity. For more than fifty years, she was never officially recognized for writing the
books.
This changed in nineteen-eighty during a court case against the publisher. Mizz Benson was
permitted to tell the world she was the true writer of the Nancy Drew series. The Nancy Drew
mysteries have sold more than two-hundred-million books in seventeen languages.
Millie Benson was also one of the first female newspaper reporters. She wrote for newspapers for more than sixty
years. She was also a pilot and an adventurer. She made many trips to the jungles of Mexico and Central America
to study archeology. Millie Benson was ninety-six years old when she died.
VOICE ONE:
Stephen Jay Gould was an important American scientist. He worked as an evolutionary biologist at Harvard
University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mister Gould studied fossils, the ancient remains of animals that lived
during earlier periods in history. This permitted him to better understand how different animal groups, or species,
developed over time.
Mister Gould was a strong supporter of the evolutionary theory developed by Charles
Darwin in the eighteen-hundreds. Mister Darwin argued that fossils could prove that plants
and animals developed slowly over time from their earlier ancestors. Mister Gould
supported this theory. However, he and another scientist, Niles Eldredge, believed that
evolution was not a slow, peaceful process. In nineteen-seventy-two, the two men
developed a new theory called “punctuated equilibrium.
”
They argued that evolution of
species happened during short, fast bursts of change during longer periods of no change.
During his more than thirty years at Harvard University, Mister Gould wrote more than
twenty popular books. He also wrote three-hundred monthly commentaries published in
the magazine Natural History. Many Americans will remember him because he tried to
make science popular and easy to understand. Stephen Jay Gould died at the age of sixty.
VOICE TWO:
The next American we remember is Justin Dart, a longtime activist for the rights of
disabled people. Such people are unable to see, hear or walk because of accident or
disease. Many use special chairs with wheels to move around. Diseases like multiple
sclerosis, muscular dystrophy or polio can leave people disabled. In fact, Justin Dart lost
the use of his legs when he became infected with polio at age eighteen. He used a
wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Mister Dart worked for more than fifty years to establish government policies to
guarantee civil rights and health care for disabled people. He was considered one of the
fathers of the Americans with Disabilities Act which became law in nineteen-ninety. This
historic civil rights law has improved the treatment of disabled people across the country.
It requires that all public buildings, transportation and other services be built or
modernized so that disabled people can use them.
Justin Dart received a great honor when President Bill Clinton awarded him the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in nineteen-ninety-eight. This is the highest honor given
to civilians in the United States. Justin Dart died at the age of seventy-one.
VOICE ONE:
The next American was perhaps the greatest hitter in the history of professional baseball.
From his early days in school, Ted Williams wanted to be a baseball player. He started
playing in the American minor leagues in nineteen-thirty-seven. Three years later, he began playing for the
Boston Red Sox in the major leagues. He played for nineteen years with the Red Sox.
(Photo - Random
House)
Words of Martin Luther
King Jr.: 'Injustice
Anywhere Is a Threat
to Justice
Everywhere.'
(Photo - mwcil.org)
During his time as a baseball player, Ted Williams had one of the highest batting averages
in baseball history. A batting average is based on the number of hits a player gets divided
by the number of times he comes up to bat. Ted Williams is best remembered for his
season batting average of four-hundred-six in nineteen-forty-one. No other professional
baseball player has reached this goal.
Ted Williams had to interrupt his baseball playing two times when he was called to serve
as a Marine fighter pilot during World War Two and the Korean War. Ted Williams
retired from baseball in nineteen-sixty. He then went on to supervise the Washington
Senators baseball team for three years.
He also managed the team the first year it moved to Texas and became the Texas Rangers. President Bush is a
former part owner of the Texas Rangers. When Ted Williams died in July, Mister Bush said “America has lost a
baseball star who will be greatly missed.” Ted Williams was eighty-three years old.
VOICE TWO:
Theresa Bernstein was an artist. When she died this year she was believed to be about one-hundred-eleven years
old. Mizz Bernstein gained recognition in the early nineteen-hundreds as one of the first women to paint in the
Realist style. These artists painted realistic pictures of the lives of the common people. They were members of
what was called the Ash Can School of realistic painting.
Theresa Bernstein painted people and places in New York City. She was both praised and
criticized for “painting like a man.” Some experts said she saw the city from a woman’s
point of view and painted activities in women’s lives. For example, her paintings showed
women at the New York Public Library, traveling to work on public transportation and
making clothing in factories. Other experts said she was just a great painter.
Theresa Bernstein continued to paint for more than eighty years. Her paintings are in the
1920: 'Self Portrait
with Hat'
(Image - jo-an.com)
permanent collections of many major museums. In recent years, her paintings sold for as
much as one-hundred-thousand dollars.
VOICE ONE:
The last American we remember this year is musician and songwriter Ray Conniff. Mister
Conniff got his start in music during the big band period of the nineteen-thirties and forties.
He moved to New York City as a young man and worked with such famous musicians as
Artie Shaw and Harry James.
In nineteen-sixty-six, Mister Conniff won a Grammy award for
his recording of the song “Somewhere My Love.” This was
also known as “Lara’s Theme” in the popular film “Doctor Zhivago.
”
Mister Conniff was one of the first songwriters to mix wordless singing with
musical instruments. He often combined female voices with trumpets or clarinets
and male voices with trombones or saxophones.
Ray Conniff worked in the music business for more than sixty years. During that
time, he recorded more than one-hundred albums. He produced more than twenty-
five albums that were on the record industry’s “Top Forty” albums list. He sold more than seventy-million
records around the world. Ray Conniff was eighty-five years old when he died. We leave you now with his most
popular song, “Somewhere My Love.
”
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
This Special English Program was written by Jill Moss. It was produced by Paul Thompson. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Mary Tillotson. Join us again next week for another People in America Program on the VOICE OF
AMERICA.
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