A Day of Celebration – The National Park Service Turns 100

George R. Stewart was not really a national parks person; he was more active in national forests, where he did much of his research.  But we met at a small state park, Thornton State Beach, where I was a Ranger.  And there, thanks to fellow Ranger Steve Gazzano, we named our nature trail for Stewart, not realizing then how much it would mean to him.  Stewart was enthralled with place-naming.  To have someplace beautiful named for him was, in his eyes, an exceptional honor.

State park systems grew from the National Park system.  So this tale of the founding of the National Park Service is part of the George R. Stewart story:

100 years ago today, the bill establishing the National Park Service was signed.

The National Parks were established before the Service, but there was no coordinated management and things were poorly run.  Wealthy businessman (he gave us Twenty Mule Team Borax) and conservationist Stephen T. Mather wanted a Service that would make sure all parks had good management and staffing.

Mather had been escorting a group of influential writers and businessmen, which included the famous photographer of Native Americans Edward S. Curtis, on a strenuous trip along the just-finished John Muir Trail.  His assistant, Horace Albright, had stayed in Washington to make sure the bill was passed and signed.  As soon as it was passed, Albright took the bill to the White House, in the evening, to get it signed.  President Wilson was not well, but he was able to sign the bill and did so at 9 pm.   Albright immediately sent a telegram to Mather, who had finished his Mountain Party and was staying with the group at the Palace Hotel in Visalia:  “Park Service bill signed nine o’clock last night. Have pen President used in signing for you….”

Here’s the whole story, from Albright:

The opening lines of the Organic Act of the National Park Service still ring as some of the most beautiful legislative language ever written:

“The fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments, and reservations… is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

The world changed that day, and we’ve all benefited.  There are now national parks and national park services in many countries, inspired by this action.

Like many lucky folks, I did a stint as a National Park Service Ranger.  I worked on Alcatraz, at Grant-Kohrs National Historic Site in Montana, and – on a detail – in the Superintendent’s office at Yellowstone National Park during the Fires of 1988.  Since the Superintendent’s office at Yellowstone is a summit of Rangering, it was all downhill from there, and I left the Service in 1992.   Yet I’d accomplished a few things in those 6 years:

• Helped upgrade the interpretive program from a movie version of Alcatraz history into one which emphasized the roots of the penitentiary idea in the work of Founding Father Benjamin Rush. (And had the rare pleasure of meeting his great-great-great-etc grandson, Benjamin Rush, on one Cellhouse tour.)
• Thanks to Ranger Ted Stout and District Ranger Armando Quintero, developed and presented a series of workshops about the history of the National Park Service and UC Berkeley. The Service was born and initially housed at UCB, where Mather and Albright had been students. (Many people don’t realize that the Ranger Stetson is actually the “Senior Sombrero” for Albright’s class of 1912.) (There’s some debate about the year of the Stetson; but the one on display at Berkeley a few years ago had “1912” embossed on the hatband.)  Quite by coincidence – or was it a coincidence? – the Mather family showed up on Alcatraz just in time for Stephen T. Mather’s great-grandson, Stephen Mather McPherson II, to be involved in the workshops.)
• In a story whose details must remain secret, I unknowingly helped derail the plans of the Superintendent of the GGNRA to “destroy” – his term – the National Park Service.
• And in Yellowstone, I was able to build on pre-existing work and bring NASA into the fire effort, thus establishing the concept of NASA-NPS partnerships which continue to this day – most recently, in Craters of the Moon, with the leadership of NASA’s Dr. Chris McKay and Craters of the Moon’s visionary and excellent Chief of Interpretation, Ted Stout.

The Yellowstone effort, informal as it was, is especially rewarding.  It was a fulfillment of an idea that came from George R. Stewart’s work, which gave the literate public the first example of the Whole Earth vision, first presented in Ordeal By Hunger:  That humans can now understand Earth from the two perspectives of space and ground.  Chief of Interpretation at Craters of the Moon National Monument, Ranger Ted Stout, and NASA’s Dr. Chris McKay,  have done much to bring that idea into fulfillment.

Now, NASA, under the direction of ISS Expedition 48 Jeff Williams,  has illustrated Stewart’s pioneering vision, in honor of the Centennial of the National Park Service. Click on the mission patch to see his video.

Credit for such accomplishments is not always given.  But the important thing is that  work was done,  for the good of the Agency and the public.  It’s what public service is all about.

There were rewards, though, in addition to the doing of it.

• Connections with Dr. Chris McKay and NASA-Ames Chief Education Officer Garth Hull led to a wonderful career with NASA Education.
• An invitation to the Dedication of the Ranger Museum in Yellowstone.
• The  gift of a biography of Stephen T. Mather, autographed by the Mather generations.
• And an unexpected experience in England that reinforced how important the National Park Service is to the world:

Attending a conference on heritage preservation at the University of Warwick, I went down late one morning to get breakfast in the university dining hall.  The couple seated across the table were distinguished in appearance and demeanor.  He was all in black except for a gold chain of office around his neck.

He said nothing.  She nodded.  Then asked, “Where are you from?”

“I’m an American, here to attend the conference.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a National Park Service Ranger.”

At that, he put his fork down, looked at me and said, “I say.  This is an honor, to meet you.

“Do you get to wear one of those hats?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I would give anything for one of those hats,” he said.

He paused, then said, “You know, I think that if America has an aristocracy, it is the National Park Service Ranger.  You represent the best your nation has to offer.”

And he went back to his breakfast.

All the time, his wife was listening with a smile on her face.  Now, she asked, “Do you know who he is?”

“No, ma’m.”

“He’s the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

I have one regret about our meeting – I never sent him a hat.  But his words showed just how important the National Park Service and its Rangers are, and how important it is to keep that integrity alive – not easy to do in a day of skimpy budgets (except for war) and politically-inspired personnel practices.

The battle continues – the NPS has been weakened by poor funding and poor, political hiring and promotion practices in too many cases.  We need another Mather, and a re-creation of the National Park Service.

Yet, this is a day for celebration; and whatever the issues or the challenges, we have this wonderful Agency with us, pointing us down a good path, into a better future.

So let’s give three Huzzahs for the National Park Service, and its dedicated Rangers.  People like Ted, John, Phil B., Bob V., and all the others who work for sunsets so we can hike the trails in Mather’s and Muir’s footsteps.

Let us all thank the Mather family – Steve MM and Steve MM II – who carry on the work of their ancestor.  Huzzah to the Mathers!

And let’s add one more Huzzah – for the Rangering in the parks that brought me to  George R. Stewart.

 

 

 

The Chicago Tribune publishes its tribute to George R. Stewart

“George R. Stewart: Unrestrained by literary borders,” Patrick T. Reardon’s fine tribute to George R. Stewart, was published yesterday in The Chicago Tribune‘s literary magazine, Printers Row Journal.    Editorial Assistant Andreea Ciulac was kind enough to send the link. (The Journal is published online only.)

The essay gives a good introduction to Stewart’s vast literary output.  As Reardon says, GRS wrote in many fields – history, geography, environmentalism, civil rights, and fiction – creating several new types of literature along the way.

Reardon highlights several of Stewart’s books – Earth Abides, Names On The Land, Pickett’s Charge, Storm, Ordeal By Hunger, and others.  He quotes from the books to show Stewart’s style in each type of work, thus giving readers a sense of how the books read.

The portrait Andreea Ciulac chose for the article was taken in 1938, probably for East of the Giants.  It shows Stewart as the distinguished scholar and author he was – in a time when the publication of a book by a company like Random House meant honor and a huge readership. (Thanks to Anna Evenson for permitting use of the photo.)

To see that portrait with its fine accompanying article in The Chicago Tribune is to feel immensely satisfied – this is the kind of honorable place where GRS belongs.  In the literary magazine of one of the great newspapers of the country.

The article should encourage a new readership for Stewart’s work.  As Andreea Ciulac writes,  “… I think the article makes you jump from your seat and go read something written by GRS!”  (Andreea is a pleasure to work with – cheerful, enthusiastic, efficient, a friend of literature, and now, we hope, of GRS.  Printers Row Journal is lucky to have her on the staff.)

By the way – I wrote in the last post that you can subscribe to the Printers Row Journal; but no longer.  On the other hand, you CAN subscribe online to The Chicago Tribune, and receive the Journal as part of the subscription, for a reasonable price.  I was impressed with the Journal,  and have subscribed for a few months to try The Tribune and the Journal.

 

 

What Is “The Good Life?” George R. Stewart, GOOD LIVES

As the years began to pile up, and George R. Stewart felt his age, he began to think back over his life.  Had he lived a good life?

To answer the question, he wrote another book.:

Good Lives: The Stories of Six Men and the Good Life That Each Won for Himself

By examining six men throughout western history who seemed to share the same qualities and the same sense of accomplishment, Stewart found a definition of what comprised a (not “the”) good life:  Joab of the Old Testament, William the Marshall, Heinrich Schleiman, John Bidwell of California, Architect Francisco Eduardo Tresguerras of Mexico, and Prince Henry the Navigator, (He apologized, with explanation, for not including any women). The men where selected from those he’d encountered in his scholarly work over the decades.  In most cases, they were not widely known.(I suspect he profiled some because he wanted to let readers know about their lives – how else would the average reader in this country learn about the brilliant Francisco Eduardo Tresguerras?) The subjects ranged from the ancient – Joab of the Old Testament – to the fairly recent – John Bidwell of Chico, California.

In their lives, he discovered six qualities of character common to all.  Each had clear goals, and stayed committed to those goals until they were accomplished.  Heinrich Schleimann, for example, continued his search for the lost city of Troy during years of suffering the humiliation of failure and criticism from professional archaeologists and finally found the city.    Each accepted responsibility for his acts.  Each had great courage, sometimes in battle, sometimes, like Schliemann, in the pursuit of a goal.  And, at the end of their lives, each man felt fulfilled in things personal and professional, and had an integration of his spirit with his physical, material life.

The book is an interesting set of biographies of remarkable men, many of whom most readers had only met before in passing.  Discovering a pattern of character that helped him, and the reader, to understand why they are worth studying, added a layer of meaning to the book.

It may lack the power of Earth Abides.  But the book is none-the-less an important part of his body of work.  In a day when reading was still the primary method of informal education, the book introduced the lives of important but largely unknown historical figures to Stewart’s large reading audience.  It also found in those lives a set of standards by which all lives can be judged – thus using them as a microcosm, in the best Stewart manner.

Perhaps most important, it teaches us about George R. Stewart – what sort of man was he?  What values did he hold highest?  How did his life measure against the six in the book?  He didn’t answer that last question in the book.  But he once told his son Jack, “That’s a book an old man writes.”  In other words, in studying those lives he was giving us a key to his, as it drew close to the end.

But he wasn’t through with life yet.  He was already hard at work on another game-changing book, which would win a major prize and help his readers understand the nuts-and-bolts of living properly in the Whole Earth ecosystem that he had first visualized and shared, in the 1930s.

George R. Stewart, Radio Character

Although George R. Stewart did not make much use of electronic communication devices or media, he did, as reported earlier, find himself involved in the creation of Disney films.  At about the same time, in the late 1940s, Stewart – or an actor playing Stewart – made an appearance on a radio mystery program.

Television was on the horizon in 1946, but Americans still listened to their favorite programs on the radio.  Comedians like Fibber McGee and Molly or Jack Benny, western stars like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans or Bobby Benson of the B-Bar-B – and mysteries or detective programs.

Mystery programs, which used the mind of the listener to create suspense or terror, were particularly creative and effective, because we all fear the unknown that we imagine much more than the known we can see.   The rattlesnake in your mind is much more terrifying than the rattlesnake on the trail.  Even today, it can be hard to listen to one of the more dramatic mysteries, like The Shadow, especially if you’re alone and it’s a dark and stormy night.

Mystery programs usually had a key character like Lamont Cranston – the Shadow.  The main character was often an urbane, slightly eccentric city type – an antiques dealer or bon vivant or independently wealthy person,  who had a nose for solving mysteries.  Think of Poirot or Inspector Morse or the modern Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Gregory Hood was such a detective  He lived in a penthouse in San Francisco, made his money in the collectible art import and export business, and even had a Chinese house servant – the ultimate mark of cool for the radio detective.  One of Hood’s creators was local writer Anthony Boucher.  Boucher was the  pen name of William Anthony Parker White, who lived in Berkeley and knew George R. Stewart.  To make the show especially “real,” Boucher used Richard Gump, of Gump’s Department Store, which specialized in the sale of art, as a consultant.

By the time of the radio show, August of 1946, Stewart had become a well-known author.  Names on the Land had just been released; impressed with the book, Boucher decided to build an episode of the radio show around it.

Several episodes of The Casebook of Gregory Hood are available; unfortunately, “The Ghost Town Mortuary,” the episode with George R. Stewart, has not yet been found.  Fortunately, Stewart kept a copy of the script, and donated that to the Bancroft.  Here’s a portion:

…GREGORY: This place is handy for the one person who I think can help us on this case.
SANDY: And who is that person?
GREGORY: Professor George Stewart, of the University English Department.
MARY: Oh yes! He wrote “Storm”—a wonderful book.
GREGORY: True, but what is more to our immediate point is the fact that Random House recently published his new book: “Names on the Land.” It’s a classic and definitive study of American place-naming. His virtues are many. (with a chuckle) Including a fine sense of entering on cue. Here he is. (Raising his voice) Hello, George.
GEORGE R. STEWART: (clearance arranged) (straight and charming ) How are you, Gregory?
GREGORY: Fine. …

Stewart is able to identify the location where a kidnap victim is being held by one word on a note – the word is the name of a ghost town.  The town is real, and the name is discussed in Stewart’s place-naming book; but Boucher moves the town west for dramatic purposes.

You can learn more about the series here.  

You can listen to an episode here.

This was not Stewart’s only exposure on radio.  A few years after this episode, the classic radio drama series Escape broadcast a version of Earth Abides.  In order to capture its epic sweep, Escape broadcast the story in two half hour segments.  And in the days before high quality recording, it was broadcast in an East Coast and a West Coast version.  The star was the well-known character actor John Dehner.

Download here.  Listen here.

Note the use of the term “ecology” at the beginning of the broadcast.  This is one of the first uses of the term, or concept, in mass media.

POST 102 – Taking Stock, Taking a Break

This is the 102nd  post on the George R. Stewart pages.  It’s been challenging and enjoyable to summarize his work and life and to describe the work of those who have been inspired by him.The posts are read in many countries – 45 at last count.  That’s rewarding.    Some readers have posted appreciative, or helpful comments.  That, too, is rewarding.

Now, due to the approach of reconstruction, I’m leaving the historic Walking Box Ranch. This means that internet access will be infrequent, until I settle into some future assignment.  So I’ll be taking a break.

In this century of posts,  I’ve shared the life and work of George R. Stewart with you: from his early decision to write beyond the traditional English Professor’s milieu to his paradigm-shifting use of the ecosystem – “the land” – as the principle protagonist in a history (the first Whole Earth work) and in a series of ecological/geographic novels. The last book explored on these pages was EARTH ABIDES,  the summit of Stewart’s ecological fiction.  Since we’ve taken a long look at that novel and its influences, this is a good place to take a break.

But we’re not done.  There’s much more to say about Stewart and his influence.  He wrote two more novels, both with geographic/ecological themes.  (One of those has been called the first “post-modernist” novel.)  He invented other types of literature:   the odological – “road study” – book and the Civil Liberties work.  He was one of the inventors of the micro-history.  In the 1960s, as the Environmental Movement (inspired in part by his work) took hold, he wrote the first popular work about the need to deal with waste, offering therein the first popular description of “global warming.”

In fact, in 1949, the year of the birth of EARTH ABIDES,  Stewart was only half-way through his creative life. He would go on to write more than a dozen books before he hung up his pencil.  So there’s much more to write about, and to share with you, when time and conditions permit.  In the meantime, thanks for reading this and sharing your ideas with me.

May the roads be good.

Read lots of books.

The Man Who Named The Storms

The 1940’s could be considered the summit of George R. Stewart’s creative work.  He had written landmark works before the 40’s – Ordeal By Hunger in particular – and he would write landmark works after.  But it was in the 1940’s that he created a new kind of fiction – the ecological novel – and a new type of history – the national place names book. He would also be internationally recognized for his work, by people as diverse as authors Wallace Stegner and John Steinbeck, radio detective show writer Anthony Boucher , and Walt Disney. But the new novel would define the man and his work.

In the Donner Party history, Ordeal By Hunger, George R. Stewart had created the Whole Earth vision, and shared it with millions of readers.  Now, in his next book, he would refine and expand that idea, creating a new kind of novel with a new – yet ancient – type of protagonist.

Stewart did not set out to create a new type of literature in this, his third novel.  On sabbatical in Mexico, he saw a number of stories in the Mexican papers about great storms in California, and decided that a novel about a California storm would thus be a good seller.   His original idea was to strand a number of humans in a hotel near Donner Pass – a story not unlike that of the Donners, but hopefully without cannibalism — and to explore how the isolation affected their interactions.

But as he wrote the book, his idea changed.  He realized that since it was the storm which affected the humans’ relationships, the storm was the key protagonist in the book.   Once he’d had that insight – or epiphany – the entire novel changed.  It moved out of the hotel, into several locations at or near Donner Pass; and it became the biography of the storm.

Much of the book is set at or near Donner Pass and U.S. 40, so if you’ve traveled that way you’ll be familiar with many of his settings.  The GeoS Pilgrim, Steve Williams, visited the area and photographed it so he could convince his British father-in-law that the snow really could be several yards deep.

Steve Williams, the Pilgrim, at Donner Pass on old U.S. 40.  March 18th, 1986.

To make the point, Stewart did not name most human characters – he named the storm.  One of his unnamed human characters – the Young Meteorologist – named storms because it was easier to keep track of them that way.  The YM was especially fond of women’s names that ended in -ia, so he chose the name “Maria” for the storm.  (Pronounced the old-fashioned way, wrote Stewart:  Mar-eye-ah.)

Stewart developed some unique literary devices for his book.  He would intermix history, names, geographic features, and so on, with the various narratives of the characters affected by the storm.  Those asides would be set apart, as if presented by a Greek chorus, thus giving the effect of a God-like overview of the life of the storm, and weather in general.  His interweaving of all these different types of writing was done masterfully; his human stories were involving; and his presentation of an ecosystem event, a storm, as principal protagonist, revolutionary.

It is the first ecological novel.  Since it was a best-seller, Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and eventually filmed, millions had the experience of considering human drama and events from the book’s revolutionary new perspective – the Ecosystem view of human experience.  As with Ordeal By Hunger, the book taught emphasized a sea change in ideas.  The world was no longer the stage on which men and women played; it was the major player in any human story.   Human character was determined by how people react to ecosystem events. Readers of STORM were internalizing those ideas.

It clearly influenced other artists.  Walt Disney filmed it for tv.  Disney then hired Stewart as a consultant, to work on some film ideas about American folklore.  The folklore films don’t seem to reflect Stewart’s ideas; but Disney soon after began to make his classic True-Life Adventure nature films, the godparents of all subsequent nature films.

The great popularity of the novel, and of  similar works by Stewart that followed in the 1940s and 1950s, lead me to believe that this book and its siblings are a major reason we had an awakening of environmental consciousness in the 1960s and beyond.  It was the catalyst for the widespread acceptance of the ecological view of human drama and events.

The book has been reprinted several times, most recently as a California Legacy book.  It’s still a good read.   I highly suggest that you visit your local bookstore – a used bookstore should be fine –  buy a copy and read this, the First Book of the Environmental Movement.

The Western Literature Association and George R. Stewart

There were two papers about George R. Stewart at this year’s Western Literature Association conference, in Berkeley.  Sadly, GRS, who should be honored as a star by the WLA, is almost unknown there.  Very few of the attendees at my panel even knew who he was.

Cheryll Glotfelty, who encouraged my attendance, said that she thinks his lack of popularity comes from – among other reasons – his inability to create well-rounded characters.  It was a perceptive comment, which acted as a catalyst for some thinking.

I was also interested in this question:  If writers honored by the WLA – Wallace Stegner comes to mind – and others of that level, like Ivan Doig, Larry McMurtry, and William Least Heat Moon consider GRS to be an important and under-appreciated writer, and readers buy his books by the thousands, why does the WLA seemingly not appreciate him?

After some thinking, I have a tentative answer.   Stewart’s important characters were not human – they were the events of the ecosystem, like a storm, and the ecosystem itself.  He may have purposely kept the human characters flat for the same reason that he did not name most of them in STORM – because his emphasis was on those ecological characters.  And there’s no question about his ability to bring eco-event to life.   Other writers realized what an extraordinary and culturally significant accomplishment this was, both in the ability to bring those characters to life and in the development of the literary devices that GRS used to do that.  Without analyzing devices or human character development, readers understood what he was doing and embraced it.

The only group who did not seem to be impressed by what GRS did is that of the literati, of the west and elsewhere.  This is probably because there is a different standard of “great” literature in those groups, including the university teachers of literature.

None of this is intended to be critical of the WLA or other literati, although I might suggest some deeper attention to the work of GRS.  I’m certainly glad that Cheryll talked me into attending, I enjoyed the conference, and all-in-all had a worthwhile weekend there.  Most important, it was a wonderful, learning experience, listening to other papers and discussions (like the one between Kim Stanley Robinson and Molly Gloss).

A final thought is this:  It seems to be an historical truth that great creative minds are often forgotten for a time, especially if they don’t do much self-promotion.  Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote music “for the glory of God,” was unknown to all (but the musicians who studied his work) for a century after he died.  Not until Mendelssohn performed one of Bach’s oratorios in honor of the centennial of his death did Bach begin to become a household word.  I expect GRS will be rediscovered by the literati, sooner or later, and will himself become a household word in literate households.

Perhaps the publication in China of Names On the Land will make Americans take notice, and that will lead to the re-discovery of GRS.

 

 

Ina Coolbrith, Jack London, George R. Stewart — and Star Trek Synchronicities

It’s been an interesting week, here in the Mojave Desert.  Last Saturday, I drove to Las Vegas, which is about 60 miles north, to see old acquaintances and friends.   Mike Okuda, Denise Okuda, Doug Drexler, and Rick Sternbach are legends of the Star Trek shows, the people who created much of the art of the series, and they were to present  at the annual Star Trek Convention. But serendipity and synchronicity seem to reign of late.  So after I had the chance to see my friends,  I met Jack London.

Jack — actually actor Michael Aron, who played Jack London on the twin Trek episodes entitled Time’s Arrow — was a surprise.  We talked for a while about Jack London and Star Trek.  Jack’s role  was one of those wonderful Star Trek: The Next Generation parts which can help teach history and literature to the uninspired.  This particular brace of episodes was largely set in nineteenth century San Francisco, and included Mark Twain as well as a young Jack London.  The history was not entirely accurate. But the programs interest students in those writers, and that time.

Back at the ranch, the idea came — Why not invite Jack London to speak to the Ina Coolbrith Circle?

The Circle, one of the oldest literary groups in the west, is a renaissance of Ina Coolbrith’s original literary circle in nineteenth century San Francisco and Oakland.  Denise Lapachet Barney, poet and long-time member of the Circle, is chief program planner.  Denise, an old friend and colleague who helped with the editing of the George R. Stewart book, kindly invited me to talk to the Circle about the book.  (She is also a former history and photography student of mine, and our families have spent many a happy hour sauntering through the Yosemite high country or singing around Yosemite campfires together.)  So I called Dee, and I called Jack London,  and it seems likely that Jack and Ina will meet again.

Ina Coolbrith and Jack London — and especially Ina Coolbrith — were founders of the first golden age of California Literature.

Ina Coolbrith, who eventually became California’s first Poet Laureate, was born to the brother of Mormon church founder Joseph Smith.  After Smith was murdered, Coolbrith’s mother left the Mormons, moved to St. Louis, and married a printer.   The family emigrated to California by covered wagon in 1851.  In one of the legendary scenes of the Westward Movement, ten-year old Ina entered California over what is now called Beckwourth Pass, seated with Mountain Man Jim Beckwourth on his horse; as they crossed the pass, Beckwourth stopped, gestured at the land ahead, and said, “There, little girl, is your kingdom.”  And it would be so.

The family moved to the Los Angeles area, where Ina married an abusive man.  After losing a child to an early death, she divorced her husband and fled with her mother and siblings to San Francisco.  Depressed, she began to re-invent herself.   she changed her name to Ina Coolbrith — Ina for Josephina and Coolbrith for her mother’s maiden family name — in part to disguise the family connection with Joseph Smith and the Mormons, in part to begin a new life.

What a life she would lead!  To read about it, which you can do here, at Wikipedia, is to read the entire history of the young California’s  literature and art, with its passion for wilderness, and to immerse yourself in San Francisco’s Golden Age.  Coolbrith became friends with Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Ambrose Bierce (for a time), William Keith, Charles Fletcher Lummis (who created the architectural style known as “Southwestern Arts and Crafts”), John Muir, Maynard Dixon, and Gertrude Atherton.  She held literary gatherings at her house — a tradition which Denise Lapachet Barney and the other members of  the current Ina Coolbrith Circle continue.   Most important, Ina Coolbrith mentored others, especially when she worked as the Librarian for the city of Oakland.

Women were widely discriminated against in those times, even in the libraries.  In San Francisco, for example, it was illegal for a woman to become the Librarian.  But for a time, at least, Ina was the Oakland Librarian.  She ran the library as a small, intimate reading room. (Not too many books, no complicated system of indexing.)  That allowed her to get to know the users of the Library, and  guide their reading.

For some readers, it became a university.   One of those “students”  (Ina had also worked as a teacher, and knew how to encourage learning) was  Isadore Duncan, who became a famous, if tragic, dancer.  Another, a ten year old boy who discovered that he liked to read would consider Ina Coolbrith his “literary mother.”    Years later, he wrote her a letter:
“…I named you ‘Noble’. That is what you were to me—noble. That was the feeling I got from you. Oh, yes, I got, also, the feeling of sorrow and suffering, but dominating them, always riding above all, was noble. No woman has so affected me to the extent you did. I was only a little lad. I knew absolutely nothing about you. Yet in all the years that have passed I have met no woman so noble as you.”   “Jack London.”
There is much more to the story of Ina Coolbrith — she would be photographed in her late years by Ansel Adams, become one of the first women allowed at the old Bohemian Club (where she would become the Librarian), be helped financially by the legendary Gold Rush entertainer Lotta Crabtree, and be honored by luminaries like Longfellow, Edwin Markham, John Greenleaf Whittier, Mary Austin, and Joaquin Miller — whose “persona” she invented.  And, of course, there is much more to the story of Jack London, who went on to become one of the best-paid, most widely-read writers of the time, and one of the few who we still read to get a flavor of California and the West of those golden days.
George R. Stewart was also influenced by Coolbrith, and London.  He never met Jack London, but it is seems that London’s The Scarlet Plague influenced Earth Abides at some level.  There are many similarities between the two books. I once asked Stewart if he knew London’s book.  He did not say that he had used it as one of the inspirations for Earth Abides, but he did admit that he’d read a lot of London and had probably been influenced by The Scarlet Plague.  (By the way, the plague in London’s book happens in 2013!)  Stewart DID meet Ina Coolbrith, interviewing her for his book on the Donner Party.  He describes the meeting, as I recall, in the much later book,  The California Trail.  A letter in his Papers makes for an interesting follow-up to his description of the meeting   — One of Coolbrith’s descendants corrects some of his observations about Coolbrith; noting, for example, that while there were pipes in the room where he interviewed her, she herself did not smoke a pipe.  (Stewart had assumed the pipes were hers.)And so, the connections, in this continuing series of essays about George R. Stewart and his work.  Jack London to Ina Coolbrith.  London and Coolbrith to Stewart.   And, a completion of the circle at, of all places, a Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas.  And with some planning and luck, Jack London and Ina Coolbrith’s  literary heirs in the Ina Coolbrith Circle will meet.  What a chemistry might result!

A nice review, and a price drop

A nice review of the biography was posted on Amazon by “Linda L.”  Since I don’t know her, the review is especially appreciated.

And Amazon is now discounting the book — it’s now $48 and change.  So if you’ve been waiting to buy it, this is the time.

I’ll be back with more about George R. Stewart — including some news about the Western Literature Association conference in Berkeley in October — as soon as the tendons in the wrist get healthier.

 

 

O Pioneers!

Here is the first part of the list of the good pioneering folks who were first to like the facebook page, or the georgerstewart wordpress blog.

People are listed in the order they’re listed on the facebook like page.  I’ve tried to give information about each that is accurate, but please feel free to send corrections if you’d like and I’ll update this:

Dinah Showman.  Dinah has a degree from Cornell, is on the State Board of the California PTA, and was the daily manager of four NASA Educators in ten states and the Pacific Territories (a job which she did in a 3/4 time position.)  Dinah was also the first editor of the GRS biography.

Beth Lapachet.  Beth is from the esteemed Lapachet clan.  I first met her at the family home when she was a tot.  Beth excels in crew, works as a physical therapist at Kaiser SF, and travels widely with her husband Brian Byrne.

Rich Lapachet.  Another of the clan, Rich has a background in exercise physiology, but currently focuses on raising his kids, making excellent beer, and acting as a co-catalyst for Yosemite trips.

Olivia Herrera is a beach buddy from the Avila area.  We shared many sun-days and fine beach chats there.  Olivia is now catering in the Chico area.

Benn Pikayvit is a Piute Elder who I met while working at Pipe Springs National Monument (which is surrounded by the Southern Piute Nation).   Benn is an interpretive ranger who does a fine job of sharing the Piute story of the area with park visitors.  The highlights of my time at the Monument included joining Benn on a hike into the Nation to one of John Wesley Powell’s survey markers; and joining him on another hike to sacred Petroglyph sites.

Martyn Fogg.  Martyn may make his living as a dentist in London, but his is one of the greatest minds in this early space age.  His book on terraforming Mars is a classic, and has become quite collectible.  When I hear Martyn speak, I think that listening to Newton must have been similar.  Martyn also makes a very good mead.

Anna Estrada is a doctor, a musician, and the lady-partner of my musician brother Ray.  Anna has been a kind a gracious hostess at their home in San Francisco.  I’ve been lucky to hear them perform a couple of times at the Cliff House.  She has also been a driving force behind 3 CDs, which Ray has produced, and which contains his playing and her singing.  VOLANDO is the latest, and highly recommended.

Andrew Chaikin is an historian of the Space Age, an author, and one of the greatest living experts on the Apollo Era.  His book, A MAN ON THE MOON, was the basis for Tom Hanks’ HBO series, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON.  Andrew also plays a pretty mean guitar.

Brian Byrne.  Beth’s husband, the leading expert in the world on visa cards that use chip technology, and a former vice-president of Visa.  Brian has just retired from Visa to become Director of a group of international banks that use the Visa chip system.  He and Beth have a beautiful home in San Francisco, a condo on Australia’s Gold Coast, and two fine children — one of whom, Michaela, just directed her first play at the University of Michigan.  Brian thinks the movie BABETTE’S FEAST is boring — yet loves to play cricket.

Terri Jarvis is a Canadian Calgarian Cousin, once known as “Little T.”  She was one of the very first to like this page, maybe the first, and thus deserves great honor.  Terri sends Canadian family news south on Facebook, when she’s not selling Watkins home products.

Son Ken Scott carries on the Scott family’s San Francisco traditions.  He’s the fifth generation to live in the City – starting with his great-great Grandfather who arrived in the 1870s and went to work as a Cable Car Gripman the day the first line opened.  He, his son, his grandson, and his great-grandson (that’s me) all stopped for a drink or a light meal at the now-legendary Buena Vista Cafe.  Ken is the smart one — he went to work at the BV, where he can whip up a fine Irish Coffee while making any customer feel at home and appreciated.  Ken also has talent as an artist and writer.

Granddaughter   Megan Ashley Scott  carries on another family tradition – acting.  Her grandmother Barbara Lannin Wren Scott worked as an assistant film editor for DeMille in the silent days; her grandmother Patricia Pancoast Reed acted in college drama.  Megan is currently pursuing her interests in the local Children’s Theatre in her area north of Salt Lake City.

Michael Sims. Michael is a NASA and CONTACT colleague of many years standing.  He was for some years the manager of the Intelligent Mechanisms Laboratory at NASA-Ames, designing software for the Mars rovers (as I understand it)  that would allow relatively simple commands to be used in their complex tasks.  He has also worked for the Stanford Peace Innovations Lab.

Bob Valen.  I met Bob in our salad years, when he was tagging Bass for California Fish and Game at Thornton State Beach, where I was a Ranger.  Bob went to work for Ft. Point National Historic Site, and then worked in several national parks, eventually retiring as Chief of Interpretation and Resource Management at Big Thicket National Preserve.  After retirement, he was Executive Director of the Edison Museum in Beaumont, Texas; then moved to Grand Coulee, Washington, where his wife, Janet, had taken an NPS job at Roosevelt Lake National Recreation Area.  Bob’s done many things in his life, but for me, his bit of immortality is the part he played — deputy sheriff — in THE ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES.

Mark Dangerfield.  I’ve never met Mark, who lives in Chicago.  He liked the page because he liked the book, THE LIFE AND TRUTH OF GEORGE R. STEWART.  I do know that Mike is quite a reader, and a lover of music, and I am honored to have him like this page.

Baiba Strads.  A Librarian at the esteemed Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley — the Library which houses the George Rippey Stewart, Jr, Papers AND the Mark Twain Papers — Baiba has played an important role in the GRS biography.  For one thing, she helped when I was doing research at the Library.  For another, she and her husband gave invaluable last-minute research help when I was finishing the work and could not travel to the Library in person.  And most important, Baiba is in the book, because she is part of the history of George R. Stewart — she babysat the Stewart grandchildren in the home on Codornices.   One of the great joys of writing the book was to be able to include Baiba and others like her, thus guaranteeing a slight modicum of immortality for them and a very important acknowledgement of the importance of such as Baiba, folks often overlooked in history.

Mary Valleau.  One of my favorite people, and the person who opened the door to NASA.  Mary shares a similar work history with me — NPS and NASA — so we hit it off immediately.    Mary encouraged me to apply for the bedrest study and the NASA Educator position, so an entire chunk of my life is owed to her.  Her philosophy of life — “I’ve always wanted to know what was around the next corner.”  — has guided me for years.

Dan Ryan.  I met Dan Ryan on the Upper Missouri in Montana at a local cafe.  He burst into the place, asking me if I needed parts for the Chinook (he had a toyota pickup or two at his place).  Then he invited me to stay with him, since he had RV connections.  Dan is a Montanan descended from Montanans.  One of his relatives was the personal secretary of one of the copper kings.  Dan, after retirement, decided to build a straw bale house not far from one of Lewis and Clark’s campsites.  Although he has arthritis, he would walk up into his wood lot, cut trees, and move them down to the building site by himself, and by hand.  The house was a gem, and an inspiration.  The winters up there are cold – but it is as warm as toast in the house.  Dan also played a minor part in one of the “land rush” westerns; and he’s mentioned in a chapter of a book about the river.  The writer was impressed because Dan almost single-handedly saved an important Lewis and Clark site that was slated for development.  Dan lives quite comfortably with his dog buddies, and I hope to visit him again when time permits.

Donnelyn Curtis.  Donnelynn is the Librarian in charge of the second largest George R. Stewart collection on Earth, at the Knowledge Center at the University of Nevada, Reno.  She was a great help in the research for my book.  She also redid the GRS splash page for the collection – there’s a link in this page’s top menu.  Writing this reminds me that I owe Donnelyn a copy of Ken Carpenter’s list of the collection – and as soon as I can get into the storage locker I’ll dig it out.

This list will be continued as time permits.  So Steve, Phil, Paul, Julie, Mike Diane, Frank, Gus, Hartmut, Paula — and the other web log folks who are kind enough to respond to it — will be showcased in the near future.