It’s Women’s History Month, and I know many TSW readers entered the workforce at the dawn of time (er.. the 70’s and 80’s) when women were few and far between in natural resource fields. And yet, the enterprise always rested on the work of women in administration, for the expected work as well as much of the unpaid emotional work of the office. IMHO, that’s one reason the Forest Service lost so much by centralizing administrative services. Then there were wives of Forest Service employees.
You may want to check out the podcasts developed by the National Museum of Forest Service History called “What Did We Get Ourselves Into?”
There is an old adage that “it takes a village to raise a child.” This is also true for the United States Forest Service, a sprawling outfit that employs 30,000 people spread over nine regions and across 600 ranger districts ranging anywhere from 50,000 to more than 1 million acres. This expansive organization has always required the help of an army of unpaid wives, sons, and daughters.
”What Did We Get Ourselves Into?” tells the stories of those intrepid women who gave their lives to “the outfit” without any expectation of notoriety or reward. Over the course of several episodes, listeners will hear stories of rugged terrain, unforgiving dirt roads, spartan housing accommodations, difficult childbirths, wild animal encounters, and much more. They will be taken inside a world that time has left behind, a world powered by loud diesel generators, crank telephones, and wood stoves. And amidst all these obstacles and inconveniences, Forest Service wives stood resilient, ready to overcome any challenge with a stoic determination and can-do attitude. “What Did We Get Ourselves Into?” is essential listening that acknowledges those ordinary families who made extraordinary efforts to achieve “The Greatest Good.”
We like stories, here at TSW, so please consider submitting your story and we’ll post them this month. Or if you’ve heard a great story from someone, encourage them to write it down and send it in.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for posting this link. I wasn’t aware of the podcast series, and I plan to listen to the stories. I was lucky to be interviewed recently by Dr. James Wall, the Historian at the FS Museum, who spent over 3 hours with me in my home. He was making a sweep through the south last fall. I talked about what it was like to be one of the first archeologists in the Forest Service, starting in 1982, though the interview went into much more. I got my permanent job in 1989 as the result of a lawsuit settlement the FS made for destroying archeological sites in NM during timber sales. The way I put it, I entered during a time of Big Timber and left after it became Big Fire, with a hopeful future of restoration. If you have a chance to do an interview, maybe at the upcoming reunion in Missoula, I encourage you to do so. I feel so lucky to be able to capture my career highlights for history.
I love that the picture is of Ellie Towns, who I got to know when she was the Southwestern Regional Forester from the mid 1990s to 2002. On the Kaibab National Forest, we had one of the first, if not the first, all female line officer team–all district rangers and forest supervisor (the late, great Conny Frisch) were women, and Ellie’s arrival made the chain to the RF. What an inspiration they all were to me!
Ellie was introduced to the SW Region at a regional recreation meeting, rolling out a new initiative to spruce up our recreation sites, called “Company’s Coming.” It had been a long couple of days but we had one last speaker. The agenda said “Eleanor Towns, Director of Lands, WO”. Everybody was ready to go home. Well, she got up there and just electrified the crowd with a hilarious story about what her mother would make them do to clean up the house when, and she yelled out in a sing song way: “Company’s Coming!” I can’t convey it properly here, but I still remember her owning that room almost 30 years later. Wow, we were all on her team after that.
It turned out that she was soon to be named as our regional forester, and she was one of my favorite people ever. Ellie was an attorney who specialized in lands issues but she was so smart and politically savvy, and just a damn good person, she could do anything.
Ellie was unique to us as an African American woman at the helm of our region. I got to work closely with her when I was acting district ranger on the Kaibab National Forest, as Ellie announced the decision for a nationally controversial land exchange at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Among our many meetings for that project, we flew into the Canyon on a helicopter to meet with the Havasupai Tribal chairman, spending the night there after visiting the incredible waterfalls. Ellie was full of wisdom and made even the toughest decisions look easy. She silenced a room filled with a hostile crowd just by her demeanor when she announced the decision favoring one exchange alternative, and it was sustained on appeal (though never implemented due to political maneuvering). She gave me the confidence to move from a district to DC to take over the Rec Fee program, which I discussed in detail in my interview.
I got to see Ellie one more time around 2012 when as a retiree she spoke to a meeting of the Southern Region leadership team. She remembered me after some dozen years, and I treasure the picture of us from that last meeting. Ellie Towns is a legend worth remembering.
These are great stories, thank you so much Terri! For some reason, I don’t seem to be on the list- thus far.