In Memory of Evamaire Mathaey

Article by Helen Longest-Saccone

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This issue of Nature Photographer is dedicated to Evamarie Mathaey, Publisher and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Nature Photographer magazine from December 1989 until December 2002. Evamarie tragically died in an automobile accident on Monday night, December 9, 2002, in Boca Raton, Florida.

I thought that you, the readers of this magazine, would like to know a little something about the Evamarie we all loved. Therefore, I’d like to share how we came to be partners and some of the history of Nature Photographer. Our business dealings were the way life should be—respectful of one another, caring and considerate—and they grew into a wonderful friendship. We had a lot of fun working together. We have always said that this magazine is a family of readers. With Evamarie’s passing we have lost an important member of our family—my partner, my dear friend.

Complements of Evamarie’s husband, Ralph, I am able to have her photograph on my desk. Ralph sent me a wonderful picture of Evamarie, which, together with his note, is framed in beautiful hardwood.

Ralph’s note touched me deeply. I’d like to share it with you. It reads, “Helen, you may want to hang your partner’s picture close to your desk so she can keep an eye on you. I know she will make a great Guardian Angel. Love, Ralph.” Thank you, Ralph, from the depths of my heart, for the photograph and for your note.

I look up and see Evamarie, full of life, her coffee cup in her hand, a piece of mail sticking out of her pocket and the tears run down my cheeks. I miss her so much, but our good memories are forever with me whenever I look at her picture and each and every day as I work on Nature Photographer.

Evamarie and I always felt that it was the Universe’s plan for our paths to cross and that we were to become partners and friends. However, under the circumstances—Evamarie being born in Germany and I in America—it seemed unlikely this would ever have occurred. But, as we all know too well when the Universe has a plan, it happens. Even if we view the plan as tragic and sad, it still happens. Life unfolds in front of us throughout our lives. Evamarie moved to America where she married Ralph—also from Germany. Many years passed from their early days in this country until I was fortunate enough to meet them. Evamarie was first and foremost a dedicated wife and mother with three wonderful children, two sons and a daughter.

Jeff Ripple, a mutual friend, introduced us in 1989. Jeff had been thinking about doing an environmental magazine in Florida when he and I met. As for myself, I wanted to publish an international nature photography magazine. Although I had this vision, I had neither the equipment nor expertise back then to turn that dream into reality. After discussing our thoughts, Jeff suggested that we meet with his friends, Evamarie and Ralph Mathaey who owned the computer equipment on which he worked.

And so thirteen years ago, Jeff and I went to Evamarie’s and Ralph’s home to discuss the possibility of starting Nature Photographer.

Each of us brought something special to the creation of the magazine. We had a love of the earth and the willingness to pursue a dream. Evamarie and Ralph had the computer equipment and the office space in their home and were willing to let us use it. Jeff had the expertise of layout and design on the computer along with the necessary writing and editing skills. I had a passionate love of the earth and photography as well as the dream. Practically speaking, I also had the beginning of a subscriber database. We were the perfect team, each of us filling a valued role in the creation of the magazine. The decision was made to publish a how-to nature photography magazine with a commitment to the environment.

Our goal was to encourage people to enjoy and cherish their experiences in the natural world with the resulting images being the icing on the cake, so to speak. It has always been important to us to stress the fact that we are visitors in the homes of the wildlife, plants, minerals, lakes, streams, oceans—indeed all wilderness, and that we need to treat the natural world with respect. We also wanted to give new photographers and nature writers a place to be published, a place to build credits and to launch careers as nature photographers.

The three of us—Evamarie, Jeff and I—worked together on Nature Photographer for the first few years. We worked hard and we laughed a lot and the Universe graced us and made it evident that Nature Photographer was part of its plan. How do I know? Many things happened along the way, but there were two significant events in the early days of the magazine.

First, John Gerlach contacted us within a few months of the first issue and offered to write and help us get subscribers. That was a real blessing. Within months he had tripled our subscriber list.

Another early and important development came when we received a letter from New York City’s best advertising representative, Jules Wartell. Jules wanted to sell advertising for the magazine. How he found us, only the Universe knows. I remember when I called Evamarie and read Jules’ letter to her. She, being the more conservative of the two of us, was concerned about the cost. After assuring her that this was definitely a win-win situation for Nature Photographer, we signed up with Jules and his agency. He added national advertisers to the magazine.

With John and Jules working with us, Nature Photographer continued to grow. Oh, by the way, for those who were not with us in the earliest days, we were black and white back then. We could not afford to print a 4-color magazine. That had to wait until there were more subscribers and advertisers.

The magazine industry hit hard economic times during the early 1990s. Over fifty percent of the approximately 200 magazines that began the year Nature Photographer started fell by the wayside. In spite of hard times, Nature Photographer managed to succeed. The combination of Evamarie’s more conservative nature and my living-on-the-edge approach to life and Jeff’s expertise in editing and magazine layout, plus John Gerlach’s and Jules Wartell’s assistance, were the ingredients for our early success.

In December 1992 Jeff left Nature Photographer to publish books and to make images, mostly 4x5s, for the fine-art field of nature photography. Evamarie and I continued together.

I remember well the first issue we produced after Jeff’s departure. It took us weeks to get that issue ready for press. Neither Evamarie nor I had any real experience using desktop publishing software. I had taken a desktop publishing software course in college just prior to Jeff leaving the magazine. This hardly qualified me for the work that faced us.

Evamarie had watched Jeff closely while he was doing the layout. This enabled her to help fill in some of the fuzzy parts of using desktop publishing software. What we didn’t know we learned or called for technical help from experts. Evamarie knew DOS far better than me. Yes, we still relied to some extent on DOS in those days. Together we laid out that first issue after Jeff’s departure—Evamarie beside me as I struggled at the keyboard with only the knowledge of that one college course to draw upon.

I remember when we began reworking the masthead, I said, “Since I am photo editor, you can be the editor, OK?”

Evamarie responded, “No, you be the editor and the photo editor.” “No, you be the editor,” I replied.

This went on for some time. Evamarie then agreed to become the editor. I remained the photo editor. Later we evolved into sharing the title of Co-Editors-in-Chief. Whatever we called ourselves, titles were never important. We never let our egos get in the way. We worked hard, did what needed to be done to the best of our abilities, had fun and grew to be wonderful, special friends.

Just before time to take that memorable issue to the printing company, I pressed a button on the keyboard. Well, to tell you the truth I probably pressed several buttons. I have always been known to be a little too fast when responding to computer commands. Anyway, all of a sudden the magazine disappeared from the monitor.

“What happened?” Evamarie asked.

“I don’t think you want to know,” I replied.

She queried, “Have we lost the magazine?”

“I think so,” I answered.

With that we burst into laughter. Why laughter? Who knows? Perhaps nerves. In any event it lessened the stress.

Ralph, wondering what the laughter was all about, eventually came to check on us. Between fits of laughter, Evamarie managed to explain that we had lost the magazine. Ralph just looked at us, shook his head and walked back into the family room.

At that point, Evamarie and I decided to go outside. Perhaps if we got away from the computer and made contact with Mother Earth maybe the computer would heal itself and the magazine would reappear. After a while I returned to the computer and discovered that I had simply knocked us out of the software program and that the magazine, except for a few changes, was all there.

I called Evamarie back into the office and made the wonderful announcement that we had not lost the issue into computer land. We were both extremely happy. The laughter at that point was joyful rather than the nervous laughter that occurred earlier.

This is the way life was with Evamarie and myself. Neither ever blamed the other for anything that may have gone wrong. We both worked together to fix it.

During the time I was still living in Florida I would go to Evamarie’s home several times a week. We would work on the magazine. Around midday, Ralph often treated us to a delicious lunch that he had prepared. The lunch conversation was always enriching and enjoyable.

Evamarie and I shared duties and did them to the best of our abilities. We knew however when the task exceeded our abilities and sought outside help. One task that comes to mind was proofreading. I don’t know who was the worst proofreader, Evamarie or myself. In any event, we were both awful. Jeff had handled proofreading. With him out of the picture, that task now rested on the shoulders of Evamarie and myself.

Once again, the Universe sent the right person to us at the most needed time. Late in December 1993, Betty Taylor, a professional proofreader, joined us as assistant editor and proofreader. At that point the team consisted of three women all living in Florida working together to bring you Nature Photographer. As the months turned into years, another dear friendship grew from our working relationship. And life at Nature Photographer Publishing Co., Inc. continued to be super. Six years ago in December I met Marty and we decided to get married in early 1997. I will never forget the day when I went down to Evamarie’s and announced that Marty and I were getting married and that I was going to be moving to Massachusetts. Evamarie looked at me and said in no uncertain terms, “No, you can’t.”

I replied, “I can’t what?”

She retorted, “Neither.”

“Evamarie, I didn’t come here to ask your permission,” I said. “I came here to tell you that I am getting married and moving to Massachusetts. The only thing I came here to ask is, do you think Sue will let Nicholas be the ring bearer in our wedding?” Sue and Nicholas are Evamarie’s daughter and grandson respectively.

Evamarie was obviously frustrated with me. “Who can talk about a wedding when we are talking about you moving away?” She managed to ask. “We will not be able to run the magazine with you living in Massachusetts.”

I then asked her if she realized how long it had been since I’d been to her home to work with her. After thinking, she said, “It has been a while.”

“Yes, it has been a month and a half,” I replied. “During that time we have put out an issue of the magazine and we have done it by E-mail, fax and Federal Express. Evamarie,” I continued, “I would never come in here and drop a bomb on you that I was going to leave Florida, get married and move to Massachusetts if I did not already know that we could continue to run the magazine.”

She sighed and said, “OK, I guess it will work.”

And it did work and our friendship grew deeper.

Once I moved to Massachusetts, Evamarie and I communicated by fax, phone, E-mail and Federal Express. We reviewed slides by sending them to one another by Federal Express. We E-mailed jpegs to discuss usage for the magazine as well as the web. Articles were reviewed by both of us and we shared the responsibility of typing them. Since we could no longer work side by side some of our duties became specialized. From Evamarie’s Florida office she maintained the subscriber data base, sent out renewals and subscription solicitations, paid bills, maintained bank accounts and tax records. I was responsible for layout design work, scanning, working with advertisers and ad reps and maintaining records. We both answered snail mail and E-mail. When we talked, we laughed.

Well, usually we laughed. Whenever I called up with a new idea, I could hear the silence on her end of the phone. She was thinking, what does that crazy partner of mine have on her mind now? I learned to not press with an idea, just present it and let it grow. After a few days, Evamarie would be ready to discuss it and would add her own creative twist.

We stayed in constant touch with one another. The only times we did not touch base daily was when I was traveling. Evamarie worried so about me when I was off to the jungle or Canada’s far north or some other remote location.

During Marty’s and my recent move to Maine we were without a phone for almost two weeks. Not even our cell phone worked at our new home/office location in Maine’s beautiful woods. Once our phone was installed, Evamarie was the first person I called. When she heard my voice, I could tell she was glad. Her comment to me was, “I have missed being in contact with you. I have felt like a boat without any oars.” I almost cried when she uttered those words because it so much described our closeness.

There have been times since Ralph’s call on December 10, the morning following Evamarie’s tragic accident, that I too began feeling like a boat without oars. Instead of giving into that feeling I’ve picked up two sets of oars—a set for me and a set for Evamarie—and rowed very hard for her memory; for her family; for you, our readers; for our field contributors, assistant, associate and contributing editors; and for myself.

When Marty and I chose to move to Maine, Evamarie and I decided that Marty would do much of the scanning and help us in other ways as the magazine continued to grow. Fortunately, Marty agreed. Now, his assistance in all areas will obviously be invaluable to me.

I thank each person who has offered their help and greatly thank all of you for your much appreciated condolences.

It is important that you know that Nature Photographer magazine will continue to bring you stunning images each issue and as you can see from this issue we will continue to grow. Evamarie and I had already planned to add eight pages during 2003. I felt it was important to add them to this issue that is dedicated to the Memory of Evamarie Mathaey.

I will forever be grateful to Jeff for introducing Evamarie and Ralph to me.

Evamarie’s and my journey over the years as editors has been one of my valued life experiences. The fact that she and I became great friends as well as being partners was the delicious icing on an already wonderful cake. We laughed a lot, shared in our accomplishments and cried together when events lead to tears. We walked through life as friends and when her beloved German shepherd companion, Tasha, died we both cried buckets of tears. We always called Tasha Nature Photographer Publishing Co., Inc.’s CEO.

Evamarie and I often commented how the two of us had never had an argument, not one in all the years. We were great friends and true partners who loved and respected one another. She and I talked for a long time on the day of her tragic death. At the end of our conversation we ended it as we always did with I love you. And, we truly did.

A note to Evamarie—Evamarie, as you journey in Spirit Land with Tasha at your side, I want you to know that I miss you deeply. You have left a void in my life and in my heart. This iris is my gift to your spirit. May its beauty go with you and weave its essence into the hearts of your loved ones. While this Spring issue is being dedicated to you, please know that each issue of Nature Photographer will always be dedicated to you in my heart. You will forever be a part of me and a part of Nature Photographer. Thank you for being my partner and dear friend. Thank you for loving me.

In the event you would like to make a donation in Evamarie’s name, a favorite charity of hers was—Pennies to Protect Police Dogs, Inc., Casselberry Police Dept., 4195 S. Hwy. 17/92, Casselberry, FL 32707. You can obtain more information about Pennies to Protect Police Dogs at www.penniestoprotectpolicedogs.org. The family also asked that I let you know that if you have a favorite charity you’d rather donate to in memory of Evamarie instead of their selected charity, please feel free to do so.

On January 23, 2003, Waltraut Viktoria “Jean” Smith, Evamarie’s sister passed away as a result of injuries sustained in the December 9, 2002, automobile accident in which Evamarie died. Jean too is greatly missed by all who loved her.

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