Couple amasses impressive collection of sea fossils

Posted: Wednesday, February 17, 2010

People ignore Helen Beatenbough's slow stroll and downward gaze to the endless swales of crushed rock and beaten shells. Those seafaring folks have eyes for the ocean alone. But what she envisions are the wildlife shapes of the sea itself.

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David Manning
David Manning

"One day I took my little neighbor and we went out to a state park there in Fernandina Beach, Fla., and we walked to the water's edge. I said, 'Now, Rick, look for anything triangular.' He went right out to the edge of the water picked up one that looked like this," she said, bringing her thumbs and index fingers together into a big triangle. Her eyes lit up with recollection of his unusual find - a rare tooth.

" 'Like this, Miss Helen?' "

"That was just so exciting," she said. "He had plenty of show and tell the next day at school."

At least twice a year, Beatenbough and her husband, Doyle, can be found on Florida's northern beaches searching for artifacts. They can identify shark teeth by species, spot a dolphin's inner ear and discern once-lethal stingers from sticks.

"Stingrays, you know that's what killed Steve Irwin (the famed 'Crocodile Hunter'), that's what they looked like," Helen Beatenbough said, nodding to the long, brown wands in her hands. "If you run your finger down, you can feel those little edges ... I have a bag of those somewhere."

Beatenbough's own nature is to collect. Turn-of-the-century figurines and glass, plucked from antique stores, are encased throughout the couple's residence. What the ocean delivers to her is set aside specially, harboring a unique place in her home - and heart.

"Every time I go downstairs, I feel like I'm going to Florida," Beatenbough said. Walls appear bright ocean blue, with seafaring ibises pictured in tall frames. Tropical flowers bloom in material covering rattan sofas. A basketful of sea shells is stationed near the fireplace, with a large conch needlepointed into decorative pillows that Beatenbough made herself.

The real masterpieces at her hands are separated in Ziploc bags and plastic tubs and housed in bank boxes. The collection dates to 1953, when her family moved to Jacksonville. Back then, cars could be parked right on the beaches, largely untouched by condominium complexes or resorts.

Beatenbough and her daughters pursued shore adventures while her husband worked his way to top executive positions at Ryder and PIE trucking companies. They pursued sea shells first. Fossilized shark teeth followed.

"Little by little you'd see something else, but you wouldn't know what it was," Beatenbough said. "We talked to the people, and they started telling us what else you could find there."

By the time Doyle Beatenbough retired in the mid-1980s, he was hooked on combing beaches, too. Although the couple returned to his native Danielsville to retire, they traveled to Florida often.

Sure, Hilton Head, S.C., produced plenty of sanddollars. Florida's Gulf Coast netted great shells and a fair amount of broken shark teeth. But Ponte Vedra Beach, just southeast of Jacksonville, Fla., stood apart as a fertile hunting ground for clues to past sea life.

"There are rare dud days," Helen Beatenbough said. "I don't think we've ever come up with a zero. We've always found some little tooth. Now what we would call rare finds, well, you don't find those every time."

"Rare finds" in her collection, part of which is on display at the Madison County Library, include deer antlers, horse teeth and "scoots," shell parts belonging to the large, armored mammal called a glyptodont.

"They said he could get as big as a Volkswagen Beetle," Beatenbough said, touching a page in her fossil reference book.

Even shark teeth, of which they have thousands, can be distinctive. "The long one like that is probably a mako shark," she said, referring to the killer fish. "These are the tiger sharks. See how they are sideways?"

Beatenbough's heavily freckled hands continued moving over the artifacts, which cover far more than fossils.

There is an arrowhead, fish and bird skeletons, and bags filled with colorful chunks of glass, most likely waste dumped from cargo ships or pulled into the ocean by the tide. She has found $5 and $20 bills, along with an endless array of accessories, broken sunglasses, hair bands and flipflops.

"Many people use metal detectors," Doyle Beatenbough added. "People find all sorts of rings, coins, jewelry. We have a metal detector, but we haven't mastered it yet."

"We took it down one time," his wife added, "that's way back when people were pulling the pop-tops off (beer and soda cans) ... and we found some of those."

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Most of the time, the Beatenboughs stick with "walking and looking." They wait for the tide to pull the ocean back from the sand, like covers from a bed. Discoveries are plenty after a fierce storm, especially as churning waves push fresh layers of material ashore.

That's when Helen Beatenbough circles her decades-old fanny pack around her waist and positions the wide-brimmed straw hat atop her head. She reaches into her pouch for two long horseshoe crab tails and uses them to turn over interesting objects that often appear black.

It could be a lump of tar she flips. Or the piece could be worth saving.

"When you find something, you want to show somebody real quick," Beatenbough said, turning to her husband. The hunt continues in earnest after that, with as many memories collected as fossils.

"When I found this, I was just walking the beach and there it was," she said, holding a horse tooth. "To me, that is just such a beautiful specimen, and it hasn't been worn that much."

Nearby, a fossilized antler appeared to her at almost the same time.

"I walked up on them, and I'm thinking all these other people ... if they were looking at all, they were looking for shells. But I was looking for these," Beatenbough said. "It was exciting."

Her husband smiled and said, "Many people will come up to her and ask, 'Are you a paleontologist?' "

She shook her head.

"It's just a hobby," Helen Beatenbough tells them. "It's the most relaxing thing because you don't think of a thing except looking for the shapes."

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