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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Calvin Beale knew more about the demographics of rural America than  
anyone. I only spoke to him once, but I relied on much of his written  
material during research for my book: How To Find Your Ideal Country  
Home. He was everything I want in a person working in government:  
passionate about his subject, superior in knowledge, gracious in  
service. He leaves a void that will be hard to fill.



Calvin L. Beale, Demographer With a Feel for Rural America, Dies at 85

By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: September 2, 2008
Calvin L. Beale, a government demographer who was among the first to  
recognize the transformation of America’s rural landscape from farms  
to a mixture of farms, industry and vacation homes, died on Monday in  
Washington. He was 85.

A niece, Carol Rudolph, said the cause was colon cancer.

Mr. Beale had worked at the federal Agriculture Department for more  
than half a century, becoming a senior demographer there.

An unpretentious man in a profession not noted for its glamour, Mr.  
Beale — his highest academic degree was a master’s in sociology from  
the University of Wisconsin — still developed a cult following among  
his peers. They marveled not just at his mastery of the theoretical  
tools, but also his first-hand feel for rural America.

He traveled to 2,500 counties (of 3,140) around the country and knew  
everything from the most common surnames in a given place to the kind  
of leaves carved above the courthouse steps. Kenneth M. Johnson, a  
professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, called Mr.  
Beale “the Michael Jordan of rural research.”

Mr. Beale’s greatest single professional contribution, Professor  
Johnson said, was figuring out in the 1960s that decades of decline in  
rural population were being reversed in some areas. Mr. Beale saw that  
hydroelectric dams in the Ozarks created reservoirs that in turn drew  
vacationers, some of whom stayed; he noticed industries like textiles,  
meatpacking and chemicals moving into areas that had been entirely  
agricultural.

When confronted with Mr. Beale’s reports of a population rebound,  
Professor Johnson said: “People didn’t believe it. It was so contrary  
to 150 years of American history.” When the first of the new data came  
out from the 1970 census, Mr. Beale was vindicated.

Mr. Beale, who is survived by three nephews in addition to his niece,  
was often a mentor to younger colleagues, like John Cromartie, who  
eventually worked with him at the Agriculture Department.

Mr. Cromartie, a geographer with the department’s resource and rural  
economics division, said Mr. Beale’s development of population  
theories came from his travels as much as from any computer model.  
Most demographers, Mr. Cromartie said, “start with the theories and  
test them.” But, he added, Mr. Beale’s on-the-ground knowledge of the  
overlooked byways of the country allowed him to “start from the bottom  
and show everyone the big picture from that perspective.”

Often it was the quirky or forgotten people that drew the  
demographer’s eye. Sprinkled throughout “A Taste of the Country,” a  
collection of Mr. Beale’s writings published by the Rand Corporation  
in 1990, are glimpses of little-noticed history.

He wrote, for example, of a mixed-race people called Melungeons,  
reputedly of white, black and Indian descent. They are found from the  
Tidewater areas to the Piedmont and the Allegheny-Cumberland Plateaus.  
“Some are landless, some landed,” he wrote. “But they are all marginal  
men — wary until recently of being black, aspiring where possible to  
be white and subject to rejection and scorn on either hand.”

Another chapter is devoted entirely to a Creole fire company in Mobile  
City, Ala., founded in 1819 and still operating when Mr. Beale visited  
in 1963.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/03beale.html?ref=us