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Peter Hans Sauer
Home:
Salem, NY
Date of Death:
January 30, 2009
Age:
71
Birthdate:
December 6, 1937
Place of Birth:
New York City , NY
Service Information:
Saturday, February 07, 2009 Celebration of Peter's life beginning at 2:00 pm McClellan Funeral Home, Salem, NY
Visitation:
Saturday, February 07, 2009 2-5 pm at McClellan Funeral Home, Salem, NY
Interment:
Private





Salem, NY- Peter Sauer was a writer, educator and administrator whose work explored relations between culture and nature. He was part of a team at the Bank Street College of Education that developed ideas leading to the Head Start program; an executive director of the New York City cultural center Wave Hill; and an associate editor and board member of Orion magazine. He died at his home on Friday, January 30, 2009 in Salem, New York at age 71.
Peter Hans Sauer was born December 6, 1937 in New York City and raised in Wilton, Connecticut. He was educated at Choate, and graduated from Washington and Lee University with a BA in Biology in 1960. After a brief graduate assistantship in oyster biology at the Oceanographic Institute of Florida State University, he volunteered for military service with the Vermont National Guard. During this time he 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. The Service's interdisciplinary staff assisted citizen groups operating child day care programs in communities in New York City and the nation at a time when political and cultural differences often impeded education. The service offered legal, organizational and educational assistance to community groups who wanted to plan and operate City-supported day care centers. During this time he wrote, with Bank Street staff, the influential essay Toward Comprehensive Child Care.
From1979 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. Peter wrote that "through its programs, this 'place' on the land becomes an artifact which reveals the consequences of these relationships." This approach 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, the only one of its kind. 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 archeological survey.
In 1991 Peter moved to Salem, New York, 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 careers-oyster 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 Bronx-were 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, 2009 from 2:00 - 5:00 p.m. at the McClellan Funeral Home, 19 East Broadway, Salem, NY.

In lieu of flowers, please make donations to Friends of the Bancroft Public Library, PO Box 515, Salem, NY 12865.
Photograph of Peter Sauer courtesy of Christina Rahr