Roger Berney Hirschland

Roger Hirschland, Writer, Editor and Collector, Dies at 74Roger Berney Hirschland, a Washington writer, editor and collector, passed away on August 18, 2018, at the age of 74, at his home in Washington DC, following an extended illness. A longtime Washington resident, Mr. Hirschland was employed as a writer and editorprincipally at the National Geographic Societybut he will likely be remembered as a passionate collector, following the path of his remarkable great-great aunts, Claribel and Etta Cone, of Baltimore, who befriended Picasso, Matisse and Gertrude Stein, and built an unparalleled collection of paintings and drawings by Cezanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Renoir and Seurat, among other nineteenth and twentieth century artistic giants. Mr. Hirschlands defining passion as a collector followed two distinct, and to most observers unrelated, branches: automotive and natural. The former took shape in a small but significant collection of stunning Corvettes housed in the garage of his downtown Washington apartment building, and in an ever-expanding display of high-quality models of cars, trucks and fire engines, numbering in the thousands. The equally impressive assortment of natural forms focused on deer, elk and ibexparticularly their antlers, heads, and at least one full body, prepared by a skilled taxidermist in a lifelike pose and installed in one of Mr. Hirschlands sitting rooms. A bachelor up to the last year of his life, Mr. Hirschland enlarged his apartment in stages by adding neighboring units to accommodate his expanding collections. As the collections amassed, Mr. Hirschland built a reputation as a courteous and precise editor and writer, dedicated to clarity in general, and in particular to the mission of broadening understanding of, and reverence for, the natural world. After a two-year stint in the newsroom of the Providence Journal, pursuing the suggestion of a Washington friend, he joined the staff of the National Geographic Society. He worked as a writer and editor of books and of the organizations childrens magazine, World, for eight years, and for the next 14 years wrote and edited geography materials for students and teachers nationwide. He worked for many years on the National Geographic Societys style committee, and served as guide and lecturer on several National Geographic excursions to Australia, New Zealand and Europe. He also wrote a book for National Geographic, Animals and Their Babies (1987).Upon his retirement from National Geographic, he went to work at the headquarters of the Peace Corps as an editor of teaching materials, both written and visual, for schools across the country. He continued to coedit the series, Journeys in Film, until the end of his life.Mr. Hirschland grew up in Great Neck, Long Island, and attended Brown University, where he worked with Dr. Louis Giddings at Onion Portage, a major archaeological site in what later became Kobuk Valley National Park, in northwest Alaska. Also thanks to Giddings, he worked for four years at Brown Universitys Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, making exhibits and doing research.His A.B. from Brown was followed by two years in Sierra Leone (1965-67) in the Peace Corps, where he was stationed in a remote village, Saiama, at the end of a rural track. There he had several pet monkeys that were great favorites with the children. With the locals, he built a bridge to ease communication. He also taught agricultural practices to increase the reliability of food production.On his return, he studied for another year at Brown before entering the Navys Officer Candidate School in Newport. He was commissioned and served on the U.S.S. Wahkiakum County landing ship tank, and was deployed in the Mediterranean. He made lifelong friends with those who shared the bridge in dangerous storms, one of which caused the ship to break in two. As a result of his duties as a gunnery officer, he had a serious long-term loss of hearing.Mr. Hirschland taught for eight years at the Gordon School in Rhode Island, during which period he earned a masters degree in the teaching of English from Boston University. He was a much-loved teacher and eventually became vice-headmaster.Mr. Hirschlands first-grade teacher, Blanche Warner, inspired in him an affinity for birds, from which he developed his lifelong passion for nature and animals, especially deer. Never killing an animal, he loved nothing better than to hike in the woods, searching for deer antlers, many of which adorned his apartment, and in the last few years, he would spend a few days in Saskatchewan each spring to hunt for shed antlers in the wilds of the Canadian prairie. He also traveled each year to Switzerland to climb the Alps searching for ibex and other wildlife.He founded a monthly newsletter for his fellow car and truck enthusiasts, "Capitol Miniature Auto Collectors Club Journal," single-handedly editing it, and writing most of the articles.He loved and was beloved by his many friends, and will be greatly missed by his wife, Sharon Hirschland, his siblings Nancy Hirschland (Andrew) Ramage and Edward C. (Chris Lonn) Hirschland, his nieces and nephews, and six grandnieces.He was buried in Richford NY in a meadow filled with wildlife. Instead of a funeral, a celebration of his life will be held later in Washington. Donations may be made to Seneca White Deer, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)3 organization (www.senecawhitedeer.org). Messages to the family can be sent to [emailprotected]