The Odyssey of a Woman Field Scientist: A Story of Passion, Persistence, and Patience

By JEAN H. LANGENHEIM

Here, Jean Langenheim presents her odyssey as a woman field scientist, who crossed boundaries of botany, geology, and chemistry in doing ecological studies. The book includes almost two hundred photographs and maps and uses a unique timeline as context for her story in relation to relevant historical events, significant changes in the status of women, and milestones in ecology from the 1920s to the present. Her research spans five continents and ranges from arctic-alpine to tropical environments. It includes many adventures (such as a forced plane landing in Amazonia and working in the midst of a coup dtat in Colombia) and interactions with diverse cultures, from Alaska Eskimo to Ghanain family life. She tells the story of a rich life of learning and discovery, through difficult and good times, which she has shared with her husband and later with her students, colleagues, and many friends many around the world.


INITIAL REVIEW STATEMENTS

Anyone who reads this rich and wonderfully interesting memoir will be inspired by what Jean Langenheim has accomplished scientifically and personally during her long and distinguished career at the interface of multiple scientific fields. This is more than a personal memoir by a leading scientist. It is a deeply insightful reflection on how major scientific disciplines have developed over the past half century and how the culture of scientific research itself has changed. John Thompson, Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution, University of California, Santa Cruz (quoted in UCSC press release http://press.ucsc.edu/text.asp?pid=3771 )

The title of this good read is truly apropos---it is an odyssey of the mind as well as life of a self-confessed adventurous woman, someone always open to the next chapter in an ever-changing life, lived during a period of significant social and technological changes. Theres a solid dose of real scientific research and discovery, tempered by the authors vivid descriptions of her travels, of the wonders of the natural world, and of the cultures she encounters in some amazing places she finds herself. Provocatively, you may recognize and view elements of your own life in ways you never thought about before. Susan Martin, retired researcher US Department of Agriculture, Colorado State University.

I liked very much your life metaphor about weaving threads in your life tapestry. It was delightful to read how those threads were constructed and woven. Your life has been very rich, impacting and inspiring many people with your thoughts and action. Francisco Espinosa-Garcia, Professor, National University of Mexico Center for Ecosystem Research, Morelia, Mexico.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781462812134

JEAN H. LANGENHEIM

Jean H. Langenheim is Professor Emeritus in Biology and Research Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She obtained her PhD at the University of Minnesota and held research positions at the University of California at Berkeley, University of Illinois at Urbana, and Harvard University before going to UCSC. She has published over 130 scientific papers, co-authored Botany: Plant Biology and Its Relation to Human Affairs and written a definitive reference, Plant Resins. As a relatively early woman leader in the field sciences—she was elected the first woman president of the Association for Tropical Biology, and of the International Society of Chemical Ecologists as well as the Second woman president in the Ecological Society of America and the Society for Economic Botany.

Book preview

THE ODYSSEY

OF A WOMAN

FIELD SCIENTIST

A STORY OF PASSION, PERSISTENCE, AND PATIENCE

JEAN H. LANGENHEIM

Copyright © 2010 by Jean H. Langenheim.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

TIMELINE

Part I

Beginnings

EARLY YEARS

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

Part II

Dual Careers

GRADUATE-STUDENT YEARS

WESTWARD TO CALIFORNIA

COLOMBIAN EXPEDITION

TEACHING DURING

BERKELEY YEARS

Alaskan Trek

EXPANDING HORIZONS WITH COLLABORATIVE Research

Back to the Midwest

New Directions:

AMBER AND DIVORCE

Part III

Solo Career

BEGINNING A NEW CAREER

COLLECTING AMBER

FROM EUROPEAN MUSEUMS

FAR-REACHING

HARVARD ACTIVITIES

RETURN TO CALIFORNIA—

UCSC RESIDENTIAL COLLEGES

BOARDS OF STUDIES AND GRADUATE PROGRAM

RESEARCH IN AFRICA

EVOLUTION OF HYMENAEA

IN SOUTH AMERICA

HALLMARK YEARS

TEACHING BRAZILIAN

BOTANISTS IN AMAZONIA

ORGANIZATION FOR

TROPICAL STUDIES

INTERTWINED RESEARCH,

TRAVEL, AND PERSONAL LOSS

Comparing Hymenaea

and Copaifera ACROSS BRAZIL

CHEMICAL DEFENSE OF

HYMENAEA AND COPAIFERA

THAILAND AND

AUSTRALIA ADVENTURE

Part IV

Changing Course

EXPANSION OF

RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

MADAME PRESIDENT

EVOLVING SOCIAL

AND FAMILY LIFE

SOJOURNS IN

HONG KONG AND CHINA

EMERITUS BUT NOT RETIRED

RETURN TO THE

NORTHERN ENVIRONS

FUll Circle

REFERENCES

PHOTO AND ART CREDITS

Dedicated to Mother and the many students and friends

who have shared this odyssey with me—and for women, especially,

who aspire to travel similar, but now more open, trails.

INTRODUCTION

I had not thought seriously about writing my life story until after a gala seventy-fifth birthday party given to me by my surrogate family of former graduate students. Colleagues and others had broached the idea, but I only became tantalized to do it after this event—realizing that I now had the time to reflect upon the extraordinary changes I’ve witnessed in my long professional odyssey. I’m writing these reflections as a memoir, a remarkably elastic genre that allows a narrative of my personal adventures and a thoughtful discussion of my professional career doing research and teaching in plant ecology, paleobotany, and ethnobotany, crossing the boundaries of botany, geology, and chemistry in so doing.

The varied parts of my life are like the threads of a tapestry. Some of the boldest and brightest threads were spun and then woven early in my life—not only my interests in geology and natural history but also my enduring love of train and air travel, of art and companion animals, as well my fascination with the variety of cultures and political issues that have shaped our world. These threads have been strengthened by the teachers, researchers, and special experiences that have influenced me at the many institutions with which I’ve been associated. Some of the warp and woof of my life comes from my years of marriage. Other threads appear and then disappear in their prominence. Together they have resulted in a complex, interwoven fabric that is my life’s tapestry.

As a child of the Great Depression, and having lived through World War II in my high school and college years, I learned perseverance in overcoming obstructions and limitations. Many of the interests in natural history and world travel I developed as a youth have played a significant role in the direction of my professional life. Doing doctoral studies under the supervision of a leading figure in plant ecology/geobotany at the University of Minnesota in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I was a latter-day pioneer woman in these areas. I was allowed to do PhD research because I was married and my husband and I could do our dissertations in tandem. After obtaining my PhD, I faced many professional limitations during the 1950s and into the 1960s, such as restrictions imposed by institutional nepotism regulations initiated during the Depression as well as society’s lack of expectations for women outside the traditional role of housewife. I had to be an opportunist in adapting to these difficulties, but I had the good fortune to be able to follow some of my multifarious interests. Through continued interaction with leaders in plant ecology and evolution at University of California at Berkeley and University of Illinois at Urbana, I participated in research during a time of conceptual advances in these disciplines. I was able to observe or study flora and vegetation from arctic-alpine environments to the tropics, and, through international travel, to intertwine my interests in different cultures and political systems.

In the early 1960s, at midlife, I surmounted the major personal challenge of divorce, and moved into a period of professional advancement through an appointment as a scholar of the newly established Radcliffe Institute for Independent Studies. With this support, that of several faculty members and associated appointments at Harvard, I was part of American society’s transition from limited expectations to greater professional opportunities for women and dramatic changes in their status.

I again was fortunate to capitalize on the diversity of my previous experience to return to the University of California and join the faculty at the new campus at Santa Cruz (UCSC) in 1966. It was an intriguing move from the oldest US university, full of rich tradition, to a new campus bursting with innovation. It also would be a contrast to my days as a wife of a faculty member while at UC Berkeley. To the educational experiment of undergraduate residential colleges within a research university at UCSC, I brought experience in having taught part-time at several small liberal arts colleges as well as having done research at four major universities. Subsequently, I lived through the period of being the token woman in numerous situations; I was not an activist fighting on the front lines, so to speak, but tried to demonstrate the capability of women through my own hard work and accomplishments.

At UCSC I enjoyed living in a residential college as a part of its development, doing innovative teaching, and designing a research program of my own, which I executed with teams of graduate students. Change was occurring rapidly across ecological and evolutionary studies during the 1960s and into the 1970s. I investigated questions at the boundaries of botany and geology (in both geobotany and paleobotany) and chemistry (in paleobotany, ecology, and ethnobotany). I used my paleobotanical studies of amber as evolutionary background to move my research into the new subfield of chemical ecology; through this I contributed to the expansion of research in tropical ecology. The very nature of this research took me to many parts of the world where I could witness both New and Old World vegetation and see how science and scientists interact in different cultures. I also developed research on Pacific Coast plants and participated in the beginning of agroecology. All of these activities were enhanced by the continuous and rapid technological advances in chemical instrumentation and computers. The impact of the Internet and electronic communication on research cannot be overstated.

I not only participated actively in building the UCSC campus but also extended my activities to national and international arenas. My timing was such that I was present in the early days and participated in the development of organizations that would become premier in their areas, such as the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, the Organization for Tropical Studies, and the International Society for Chemical Ecology. While serving as the first woman president of the Association for Tropical Biology and the International Society of Chemical Ecology and the second woman president both for the Ecological Society of America and the Society of Economic Botany, I had the opportunity to observe how the role of science in society and the role of women had changed during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Although I accepted the university’s special retirement package in 1994, I have remained active in campus activities, especially those concerning graduate students, as an Emeritus and Research Professor.

I have chosen to tell my life’s story chronologically—the way I have lived it. I have, however, grouped some major activities that spanned a number of years, providing a sense of continuity in these cases. Remembering is a tricky business and there are several levels of accuracy in my account. My memories of some threads are still vivid, whereas others are misty. Some I can verify empirically, but evidence for others is irrecoverable. Although some of the stories I have included are imperfect recollections, they have not been sacrificed because verifiable data are now lost.

I also have the advantage of being an inveterate letter writer. Until my mother’s death in 1978, I wrote many letters to her recounting my adventures from places such as Colombia, Mexico, Brazilian Amazon, and Africa. She saved many of these letters, having enjoyed accompanying me vicariously. And, I was surprised recently to receive a packet of letters I had written to a young soldier from Yale whom I had met during World War II; one of his children sent them to me after his death. I derived some information from field notebooks and from the plethora of photographs I have taken over many years. And since this is the odyssey of an academic scientist, documentation of my life can be found in the records of numerous universities, national and international committees, and professional societies as well as from my publications, those of my students and collaborators, and those of other scientists whose research I have put into my own historical perspective.

The particular time span of my life greatly influences my story. To facilitate understanding of some of the significant changes that are relevant to my odyssey, following this Introduction I have included a timeline. On the same timescale as my life story, I have compared selected historic events, some indicators of the changing status of women, and milestones in ecology of particular importance to my areas of interest. My hope is that the timeline can be a useful reference as I place each chapter of my life in its larger context.

Memoir is a new genre for me. Throughout my life I have described my experiences and reactions to events in many letters, but the narrative style I have tried to develop here is alien to my experience in professional scientific writing. Furthermore, I could not think of writing without referring to the writings of others. Although not cited in the text, a chapter-wise reference list is appended at the end of the book.

So many wonderful people have influenced my odyssey over the years, and most of these names appear in the pages that follow. An exception is a discussion of all the graduate students I have either sponsored or cosponsored. Space does not allow me to include the following students who obtained masters degrees, but nonetheless were integral members of the lab family. I would feel remiss not to at least mention them here: David Wilson, Craig Foster, Robert McGinley, Rita Belserene, Jan Allison, Leslie Linn, Juan José Jimenez, Marc Buchanan, Catherine Courtney, and Yael Lachman.

I gratefully acknowledge those friends and colleagues who have given much time and thought to reading and commenting on parts or even entire drafts of this manuscript. Their willingness to be a sounding board to me has been invaluable in writing such a complicated autobiography. And for me, it was fascinating to analyze the differences in their perspectives on my life. Much of whatever success this writing venture has can be attributed to their inputs. I especially want to thank Anne Hayes for her persistence in assisting with copy editing, and for insightful comments throughout the volume by Sue Martin, Karen Holl, Lincoln Taiz, Ingrid Parker, John and Jill Thompson, John Jordan, Deborah Letourneau, and Susanne Altermann. Others who have read parts or given continual encouragement for which I am grateful are: Pete Holloran, Karen Tenney, Elizabeth Bell, Jonathan Krupp (also of great assistance with scanning many photographs), Teresa Rao, Teresa Payne, and Erica Lann-Clark (input from a nonscientist perspective), Gail and Leroy Fail, Aaron Hicks, Susanne Arrhenius, and Emma Jean Bowman. I am grateful for Adelia Barber making several maps and Amy Whitesides’ addition to all of them. The timeline came into existence with the help of Sue Martin in particular, as well as contributions from Susanne Altermann, Aaron Hicks, and finally by Amy Whitesides. I appreciate Dotty Hollinger’s typing of early drafts and Linda Frazho’s assisting with the collation of photos and preparing the index list, among other essential tasks.

All royalties from this book will be donated to the Jean H. Langenheim Graduate Fellowship in Plant Ecology and Evolution at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I encourage readers to make donations as well to this fellowship through the UC Santa Cruz Foundation, 2155 Delaware Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (http://giving.ucsc.edu/).

TIMELINE

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Part I

Beginnings

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As Girl Scout campaigning for leadership program

of Tulsa Community Fund

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EARLY YEARS

1925-1943

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, . . .

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as driving rain . . . .

From a Railway Carriage,

—Robert Louis Stevenson

Some of my earliest recollections are of having my eyes glued to train windows, especially fascinated with the plants in the different landscapes as they moved by, and wanting to get out to investigate them. This early opportunity for travel came by way of my father who worked for a railroad and my mother who took me on many train trips to visit her family. From these early days of riding in trains across the landscapes of North America, my travels eventually took me, along with some surprising adventures, to five continents.

My mother, Jeanette Smith, grew up in upstate New York and met my father, Virgil Wilson Harmon, in 1919 in New York City, where he was stationed in World War I. My father came from a southern family that had moved to Arkansas, and after his graduation from high school there he attended Chillecothe Business College in Missouri. My mother was very much a Yankee, whereas my father was a southern man to the core—cultural differences that ultimately affected my relationship with each of them. Following their marriage in 1920, my parents moved to Homer, Louisiana, where Father had taken a job as an accountant with Louisiana and North West (L&NW) Railroad—a connecting freight line to Union Pacific. I was born in Homer on September 5, 1925; it was Labor Day, which my mother thought most appropriate.

We were able to pay reduced fare for train travel, and my mother and I took long train trips to New York and other parts of the eastern seaboard to visit her family. Mother told stories about how I always loved the trains (especially the big steam locomotives of these days) as well as my excitement of accompanying her on trips. She also often recounted how, as a three-year-old, I insisted that a neighbor child walk with me several blocks to the station to see the trains that took me to faraway places. When my father found us there my little companion, now in tears, was not as enthusiastic about the adventures these trains seemed to signify for me.

In the early 1930s, because of Great Depression economics, my father’s job with the railroad was terminated and we moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he had found a job as an accountant with a truck line. Trucks became important in Tulsa during the Great Depression, with the construction of Route 66, the transcontinental highway from Chicago to Los Angeles, which went through the city. This highway presaged the country’s greater utilization of trucks to transport freight, and my father continued to work with this developing industry. Because of the presence of the oil and gas industries, the effects of the Great Depression were less felt in Tulsa than in so many places; nonetheless, it had an impact that influenced my family for many years. A lifestyle of thriftiness and finding ingenious ways of achieving goals—including happiness—that did not require large sums of money became permanent parts of my character, traits that have stayed me throughout my life.

Tulsa was known as the Oil Capital of the World, and many people were employed by oil companies and related industries (forty-five major companies and more than 500 smaller ones had offices there). A number of these employees had been moved to Tulsa from eastern states, and their presence made for an invigorating mix with the Indian (Native American) and Sooner (nickname for early pioneers) populations. Before Oklahoma became a state, it was Indian Territory—the area where the Five Civilized Tribes of the southeastern US had been forced to relocate.

I was captivated by the Indian history of Tulsa. It was first a Creek town—Tulsa means town in the Creek language—and the town’s development was particularly influenced by these Indians. The Cherokee Indians were so advanced as to have a written language, and the Osage Indians, who had been displaced from Missouri, were wealthy because of their excellent range land, which contained oil as well. I was very interested in the cultures of these Indians and how they differed from mine. I admired them, especially the ones with whom I had some contact, and as a youngster I sometimes wished my heritage was some part Indian. This admiration was certainly a part of my nascent interest in different cultures.

Our house was full of books, especially as I was constantly lugging home so many from the public library. I treasured my library card—it provided a free way to enjoy myself and expand my horizons. Mother and I went to the library frequently and roamed the shelves, and we found that we had a lot of common interests to discuss together. I was fascinated with natural history and spent hours poring over National Geographic. I also very much wanted to know about people in other countries—how they lived and how their cultures differed from ours. I loved Heidi and had my heart set on visiting the mountains in Switzerland early in my life. Later in high school I began delving into biographies—being especially interested in how influential people, such as Madame Curie, had overcome difficulties to attain their goals. Despite lots of reading, I got outdoors a great deal, taking walks with my dogs, playing tennis and softball, as well as ice skating. I successfully competed in city and regional tennis tournaments, but I had no coaching, and there were no organized softball teams for girls in those days.

My mother was the strongest influence on my life. We developed a deep bond that persisted until her death when I was 53-years-old. In a high school essay, I wrote I am exceedingly thankful for the ideas she (Mother) instilled in me . . . expression of gratitude, looking on the sunny side of life . . . but one of the attributes I cherish most is the love of good books. Although Mother only finished high school, she was a truly educated woman with a great appreciation of learning. She always encouraged my insatiable reading habits and my enjoyment of school—in sharp contrast to my father, who felt a little disappointed that I wasn’t more of a Southern Belle. Although there was no real enmity, my relationship with my father was never close. His ingrained racial prejudice about Negroes (correct name at that time) from his southern upbringing resulted in some heated arguments, but primarily I felt he just never really understood me or my interests, and thus he had little impact in the trajectory of my life.

Another difference between my mother and father was their politics—especially their views on racial issues. Mother simply could not support my father’s ingrained attitudes toward segregation of Negroes. She was a Northern Republican (her older brother was prominent in New York Republican politics) and my father was a strong Southern Democrat. The right for women to vote had only come in 1920, the year when my parents married, and Mother definitely wanted to exercise that privilege. She did give in to voting for the Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, because she thought he was helping to get the US through the Great Depression (and he was from upstate New York). Listening to discussions of both the Republican and Democratic views as a youth may have led in part to my having voted independently in most elections.

Mother enrolled me in a Christian Science Sunday School, which I attended through my youth. She had been influenced by its philosophy while growing up and attended church, although not as a member. Similarly, I neither became a member nor completely accepted all of its doctrines. I did gain a significant foundation in faith that a God of Love was ever-present, which gave me an attitude that dispelled fear and helped transcend difficulties. Further, I turned to Christian Science practitioners to help me spiritually in times of need throughout my life.

Life was much simpler while I was growing up than today. There was no TV; for entertainment, we listened to the radio or went to movies in the ornate Art Deco theaters. We laughed together at many comic shows on the radio. These comedians provided needed laughter during the stressful years of the Depression and World War II. Mother was a great music lover and regularly listened to the Metropolitan Opera on Saturdays, one of her New York traditions; she soon incorporated me into participating—initiating a long interest in opera. She also took me to any concerts that were available in Tulsa during those hard times.

Most of Mother’s ancestry was English, and this had influenced her love of things English. Following the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936, we got up at 3:00 am Tulsa time to follow the pageantry of the coronation of King George VI over the radio. I was fascinated with Princess Elizabeth, often called royalty’s Shirley Temple (the child movie marvel of the time), who was just my age. After her ascension to the throne in 1952, I have continued to follow her activities. Like my mother, I have maintained a strong interest in England’s history, literature, and her people. Some of my closest personal and professional associations have been with English men and women.

Mother had some of the British stiff upper lip attitude, but not in the extreme. Although times were tough financially for us during the Depression, I never remember her dwelling on it. She was imbued with the importance of duty in doing one’s job well and in bearing any difficulty with dignity and little complaint.

Another experience that spurred my interest in people from other countries was having pen pals. Especially important was my correspondence with Mirko Feric, a Yugoslavian boy whose wealthy Zagreb family had a summer home near Dubrovnik. His letters, written in wonderfully poetic English, often included a little bouquet of forest violets that he had collected along the Adriatic. He wrote so lovingly of his home that I fell in love with it—and with him, a little bit. We exchanged letters for four years, but after World War II had begun and he had become a pilot, he wrote to me that he could not continue our correspondence. Thirty years later I visited Zagreb and Dubrovnik, still wishing I could finally meet him.

I remained fascinated with all possibilities of travel, which, during the mid-1930s, expanded from trains to include flights. As it was for many girls of my age, Amelia Earhart was my heroine. Her solo flights captured my imagination for adventure, and I was a devastated twelve-year-old when her plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 while attempting to encircle the world at the equator. In French class I was enthralled by Antoine Saint Exupery’s Vol de Nuit and later his Wind, Sand, and Stars. His poetic descriptions of flying over the Sahara and Andes made an indelible impression on me. I was so fascinated with flying that I pleaded for family trips to the airport to watch planes come and go. Tulsa was becoming an aviation center with the development of a leading institution to train civilian pilots and engineers. As a special birthday present one year, my parents gave me my first airplane ride. It was with a local pilot who included a few simple stunts in the ride. My father went with me but was terrified; he was tightly holding onto my hand, rather than the other way around. I loved it.

I did not have the pleasure and special benefits of knowing grandparents; I had only a few aunts, uncles, and cousins who all lived far away. Since I had no siblings, my mother encouraged me to have pets as a source of companionship. I dearly loved my dogs and took them with me for long walks in the tall grass prairie and woodlands on the Osage Indian Reservation two blocks away. Together we wandered among the beautiful big bluestem grasses often waving in the wind—and purple cone flowers, penstemons, asters, and golden coreopsis. I frequently stopped to draw plants or bring some home to paint. During the War I collected the pods of milkweed—the floss was used as a substitute for kapok in life jackets. These walks not only enlivened my appreciation of the beauty of the natural world, but also were a part of my ever-increasing interest in understanding it. Recognition of the area where I once walked, known as Osage Hills, has come recently in a 216-acre site which is being selected for the Oklahoma Centennial Garden and Research Center. Over 400 native plants have been found there, an unusually rich local flora for Oklahoma.

I had a beautiful collie whom I had named Lassie after the dog in Eric Knight and Lilian Oligado’s book, Lassie Come Home (later to become a much-loved TV program). My wonderful dog companion met a horrible death that greatly affected me. She was lured to eat poisoned meat by a neighbor who feared dogs. She died a painful death to which the neighbor admitted. It was the first time I had ever felt an intense sense of hatred and my mother had a difficult time convincing me to let it go, as such hatred would only be a burden that would hurt me in the end. This unforgettable experience has led to a lifetime of activities to help all animals, and especially those that have suffered from either human neglect or cruelty.

Mother had a life-long love for animals as well. During the Depression years there were soup lines for humans, but Mother worried about the welfare of homeless animals. Even though we had little to spare, she fed neighborhood strays, even making space for some of them in our basement area. She was commended later by the local humane society for her efforts to help these animals.

As another antidote to my being an only child, Mother fostered a kind of sisterhood for me in Girl Scouts. Mother was the leader of the Forget-Me-Not Troop from my early years in junior high through high school. In this troop I developed some long-lasting friendships, which have survived to this day. Pursuing merit badges allowed me to satisfy many of my interests. Although several natural history projects influenced the direction my later education would take, one in particular had captivated me. I made an extensive collection of rocks and minerals and began to learn how they were formed, which inspired me to want to learn more about geology—and the earth’s history. This was an area that also fascinated my father and a Girl Scout activity that he actively supported.

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With father and mother discussing Girl Scout work

Scouting not only provided sisters for me, but also provided an inspirational mentor for the other girls. Mother was a beautiful woman who radiated warmth and friendliness. I never knew a person who disliked her. Although my sister scouts loved their own mothers, some openly told me that they were envious of mine. She was a feminist in her own way, encouraging me and other girls to explore our interests and go as far in our education as we wanted. She became highly respected in the entire Tulsa scouting community; she was, in fact, a quietly effective leader wherever she turned her hand.

Mother was particularly proud of my having been selected to join an academically elite group of junior high students who took special courses and then continued together in some other courses at high school. Robert Hutchins at the University of Chicago had designed some of the basic ideas of this program. In our case, students moved as rapidly as the group was able through certain subjects (I especially remember English, foreign languages—Latin and French—and history), and were encouraged to cross boundaries between them. Speed did not drive our learning, but rather indicated our ability to grasp information and then move on—not to be held back by any standard timetable. Moreover, we students and our teachers (who also had been selected for the program) enjoyed the intellectual excitement of sharing ideas, and discussing them in some depth. It was an early version of an honors program, referred to at the time as progressive education. My association with intellectually-oriented boys in this program may have helped me later in my relationship with male faculty colleagues. I have always felt at ease with them—even with those brighter than myself—and confident that I could hold my own without needing to compete aggressively. Demonstrating that we could comprehend new kinds of material rapidly may also have given me the courage later to venture into new academic disciplines—especially in establishing interconnections between them necessary to understand complicated scientific questions.

Upon graduation from high school in 1943, I was well prepared for college. I had many interests but was leaning toward pursing some area in the natural sciences, having been tipped in that direction by my scouting activities, and these being reinforced by inspirational teachers. I still was not sure where I would go to college. Mother had always dreamed of my going to an eastern girl’s college such as Vassar or Smith. But faced with problems posed by World War II, and some financial constraints, I decided to stay close to home at the University of Tulsa (TU).

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

1943-1946

What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little space of life by him who interests his heart in everything.

—Laurence Sterne

The University of Tulsa (TU) was founded in 1894 as Henry Kendall College, a Presbyterian Church school for Indian girls, and assumed its present name in 1921. Although the church relinquished strong control over the years, it is still one of their largest doctoral degree-granting institutions, and has grown with continuous generous endowments from wealthy oil people in particular. My financial concerns were ameliorated by scholarships from TU and the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

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As a college student

I had finally decided that I wanted to major in geology, partly because a charismatic high school geology teacher had encouraged me to continue that interest. It was unusual for geology to be taught in high school, but the subject was fostered in Tulsa because of the large number of geologists employed there in the oil industry. Geology also was an especially strong field at TU because of its globally recognized petroleum engineering program. When I tried to enroll as a geology major, however, I was decidedly discouraged from doing so because women were not allowed to take a summer’s required field course. This perceived inappropriateness of women living in the field with men posed problems for women wanting to study and become geologists not only at TU but also at universities across the country. (Marcia McNutt’s 2009 appointment as the first woman director of the US Geological Survey is evidence of slow, but enormous change for women in the discipline of geology.)

Fortunately, during my freshman year I met a botany professor, Harriet Barclay, who suggested a way out of this impasse by combining geology with botany—a more acceptable outlet for my interests at this time. Harriet had taken her MS in plant ecology with W.S. Cooper at the University of Minnesota and her PhD from Henry Chandler Cowles at the University of Chicago, both of whom emphasized the role of geomorphology in ecological understanding of the succession of plant communities from originally bare areas. Cowles, a geologist turned ecologist by his own admission, had developed what was called the physiographic school of ecology. With great enthusiasm, Harriet persuaded me that this was the direction for me to go. I enrolled in both botany and geology courses.

Field trips were what I most enjoyed in botany courses with the Barclays and they were the beginning of the strong thread representing my passion for field research. Harriet and her morphologist husband comprised the botanists in the biology department. Both were often present on field trips. I took their courses, Flora of Oklahoma during the summer of 1944, and Plant Ecology during the next spring. Despite rationing during the war years, the Barclays somehow managed to obtain gasoline and cars with sufficiently decent tires for field trips around Oklahoma. Importantly for me, during these trips I became well acquainted with these two botanists, and I began to learn how informal interactions on field trips could help establish relationships between students and faculty—something I later tried to develop in my own courses.

As we surveyed the flora and vegetation in Oklahoma, I was also introduced to thinking from an ecological perspective. Harriet used the first American textbook in plant ecology, by John Weaver and Frederic E. Clements, in which the authors presented it predominantly as a field subject. They emphasized climate and soil in understanding the distribution of vegetation, and discussed in detail prairie and dry deciduous forest communities—the major vegetation types in Oklahoma. Tulsa is at the edge of the tall grass prairie with post and blackjack oaks forming a characteristic scrubby forest on the ridges and uplands. Our ecology course trip to the Ouachita Mountains in southeastern Oklahoma and neighboring Arkansas was an outstanding event for me because here we observed not only oak-hickory forest but also a relict forest that comprised other kinds of deciduous trees and especially large cypress trees. This relict forest led me to wonder what kind of deciduous forest might have existed in this and other areas in Oklahoma before the Ice Ages.

In western Oklahoma, we saw many abandoned farmhouses almost engulfed by drifts of sand, which had led to the vast emigration of farmers from this region. I was particularly impressed by the sand dunes built up along the Cimarron River in the Oklahoma panhandle. This area, along with the red desert of neighboring Kansas, had been the source of much of the red sandy dust that had sometimes turned the sky red, and that I had continually swept from our porch during Dust Bowl times. We also discussed Paul Sears’ book Deserts on the March while observing some of the devastation that he described. Sears had experienced the drought of the 1930s while a professor at the University of Oklahoma, and had effectively highlighted the catastrophic effects of allowing excessive plowing of soil, overgrazing, and cultivation of margin lands in removing plant cover.

In addition to academic life, I had an active social life as a member of the Delta Delta Delta (Tri Delt) sorority, which several of my longtime girl friends had also joined. Campus social life was much simpler then. Alcohol was rarely available because Oklahoma was still a dry state (alcoholic beverages being illegal). Drugs were not on the scene yet. Smoking, however, was considered sophisticated, in part because glamorous women in the movies smoked. In my case, however, my first try was my last simply because I disliked it. We were well-mannered, having been taught social graces as part of being brought up as well-bred young ladies. Our femininity focused on our appearance. We were nattily dressed—no pants or sweat shirts except for field trips—dressing fashionably for parties with carefully coifed hair. Our revolts against tradition were expressed mildly by wearing a special cashmere sweater backwards or scuffing up a new pair of saddle oxfords. We accepted society’s expectation that we would be virgins until we married.

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Richard (Dick ) Zahner

Because of the war, there were fewer full-time male students at TU than usual, but numerous servicemen regularly visited from nearby army camps. We felt entertaining these men was one of our wartime responsibilities, and they were happy to be our dates for parties at the Tri Delt house, at football games (an important part of southwest culture), and dances where we jitterbugged to bands that played hits by Glenn Miller, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman.

At one of these dances, I met a young Yale man who was studying to be a translator at Camp Gruber near Muskogee, just southeast of Tulsa. Richard (Dick) Zahner started coming to Tulsa with friends on weekends and we went to various functions together. Our friendship continued with more than a two-year correspondence. (I received letters I had written to Dick in an extraordinary manner. His children had found a packet of 30 of them in the attic following his death. They found my e-mail address and asked me if I would like to have them!) These letters were lively intellectual exchanges about literature and politics, and Dick even wrote one letter to me in French—but they also detailed what an active academic and social life I led. I not only took my science (geology, biology, and chemistry) classes, but also philosophy, world literature, and history. At the same time, even with scholarships, I also worked in the library, graded English papers, and was a lab assistant in botany to bring in extra money. In one of these letters to Dick I made a prophetic statement. In discussing my feeling of inadequacy in being a teaching assistant in a botany class, I wrote, Teachers are, of course, still students who have gained more knowledge . . . I like that idea because I somehow feel that I will be a student (a teacher?) all of my life.

During the summer of 1945 I had a wonderful time taking courses in plant physiology and history of civilization at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I relished my first exposure to plant physiological experiments, which were considered so important for explanations in many ecological studies.I also was enthralled with a civilization course that emphasized the history of eastern cultures, in contrast to a TU course I had taken about western civilization. It was the TU professor who taught this course who suggested that I could combine my interests in botany and the humanities by taking courses at the University of Wisconsin during the summer. It also was my first experience in a northern glacial lake country and beautiful mixed conifer-hardwood forests, and I enjoyed learning to canoe and sail on Lake Mendota. Moreover, I celebrated the excitement and sheer jubilation of V-J Day, the end of World War II, in Madison. Having spent most of my high school and college years while the US was at war, it took some time for me truly to realize that it was finally over in both Europe and the South Pacific.

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Plant physiology experiments

Another favorite professor at TU, Nels Bailkey, was a charismatic historian and political scientist, who was also very active in student politics. In 1942, he led efforts to establish a campus community government with representation of faculty and students on a council. Previous student governments had existed in several forms but along typical student council lines—student members with a faculty sponsor. However, the Community Council was founded upon the idea of giving both students and faculty representation. Having faculty representation rather than sponsorship was designed to strengthen relationships between faculty and students—an idea well in advance of the later 1960s campus revolutions I witnessed in California. The president was a student elected by the entire community and held accountable for the success or failure of all school activities (other than academics, of course). Called a Laboratory for Democracy, the council was meant to foster the democratic habit of civic participation as well as to train leaders.

In the spring of 1945, as a junior, I was elected president of the Community Council and was the first woman president in the history of TU student government. Some doubters suggested I was chosen only because so many good male competitors were still in the armed forces at the time of the election! I had previously represented my sorority on the council, had served as its secretary and as chairman of the assemblies committee, and felt ready to be at the helm. And apparently the campus community thought I was as well.

The success of the council under my leadership led Bailkey to suggest enlarging the scope of our influence to include a Conference on Campus

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Taking oath as president of TU Community Council

Government and Leadership Training and invite student body presidents from various universities to come to TU to discuss these issues. In addition to good campus governance I was concerned about training leaders to preserve peace and strive to solve global problems following the end of World War II. There was an enthusiastic response to our Laboratory for Democracy idea, and in the spring of 1946, twenty-seven colleges and universities were represented from eight southwestern states at the TU meeting. We had a spirited exchange of ideas and students vowed to return to their campuses to try to increase the role of student government in training future leaders.

By taking summer college courses I finished my studies at TU in three years. In 1946 I graduated in a blaze of glory with more honors than any other senior. One award was from the Panhellenic Council, which voted me the most outstanding senior woman. I also was elected to Phi Gamma Mu, the social sciences honor society, as the most outstanding student in the social sciences, quite a feat for a natural science major. Of course, my leadership activities associated with the Community Council were instrumental in this recognition.

I had applied to the Universities of Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania (the institutions with the leading figures in plant ecology at that time) to do my graduate studies. I was happily surprised to be accepted by all of them, with offers of financial support. I accepted Minnesota as I wanted to work with Harriet Barclay’s mentor, W.S. Cooper, with whom I would be able to combine my interests in geology and botany.

Harriet Barclay was to be the only professional female role model I would have. She had obtained her PhD from the University of Chicago in a botany department, which was a leader in granting PhDs to women in botany during the 1920s. She also was one of the first active women plant ecologists with a doctorate at that time. Only E. Lucy Braun had preceded her in 1914. However, after women got degrees they were usually unable to find jobs, especially if they married. Harriet found a way to work and have a family by teaching in the same university department as her husband—an unusual situation for a wife, as most institutions had strict nepotism regulations during and for some time following the Great Depression. She was a very energetic person and an enthusiastic teacher who inspired interest in ecology among numerous students both at TU and at Rocky Mountain Biology Laboratory (RMBL). Although she participated in various research projects, notoriously she did not bring the work to publication. She told me later that, although she finished her PhD dissertation, she never really got over the severity of Cooper’s criticism in writing her MS thesis. Probably because she did not publish her limited research, but was heralded as an outstanding teacher, I never heard her talk about careers for women in ecology other than teaching. I was the only woman of her many students who went on for doctoral studies.

Later in life, following her husband’s death she displayed her adventurous side—collecting plants in the Colombian, Venezuelan, and Ecuadorian Andes as well as in Africa and other parts of the world. Her collections finally reached over 30,000 alpine plants, but she did not publish articles about them. Ultimately our perspectives diverged because I became associated with institutions that emphasized research and publications. She had remained focused on teaching, local conservation activities, painting, and giving beautifully illustrated lectures to civic groups. She certainly received much recognition in these areas—even becoming a member of Oklahoma’s Hall of Fame.

SURPRISE ENGAGEMENT

In the spring of 1946, I met Ralph Langenheim, Jr., the son of the dean of the Petroleum Engineering School, at a TU dance. Ralph had a BS in geological engineering from TU and had graduated from midshipman’s school at Annapolis. He had been the commanding officer of a LST (landing ship tank) in England, France, Alaska, and the South Pacific, thus encompassing both theaters of the war. Immediately following the war, he had enrolled in a master’s program in geology at the University of Colorado, and visited Tulsa for only a few weeks during his spring vacation. We were introduced at a dance and followed it by playing tennis and going on fossil-collecting trips together. He surprised me, before returning to Colorado, by offering me his fraternity pin followed by an engagement ring. He also gave me a geology hammer as an engagement present—to be symbolic of a partnership to work together.

I was completely swept off my feet by this handsome, dashing young geologist. The Barclays were so enthusiastic, as were both my and Ralph’s parents (whom I liked very much), that I seemed compelled to accept the engagement. It was as though some force was leading me in a certain direction. I had been in continuous correspondence with George Bowen, my high school beau, who had spent the war at Cal Tech, studying physics under a special Navy program that enabled him to continue as a student. He had been looking forward to seeing me soon in Tulsa, and been more or less assuming that we would probably marry after he finished his education. George was extremely bright and a great guy, but did not have an adventurous spirit that Ralph displayed. Also, in his post-war letters to me, Dick Zahner had asked a few leading questions—he was thinking about marriage, to which I had replied noncommittally, focusing instead on my plans for an advanced degree. Dick was a delightful, very kind and thoughtful person whose company I greatly enjoyed. But he too lacked the sense of excitement that Ralph had created. Writing to tell both George and Richard of my decision to marry Ralph was no easy thing. Although both of these fine men appreciated my intellectual leanings, my life would probably have been much more traditional if I had married either one of them—certainly would not have involved the adventures of joint field studies in various parts of the world.

In the l940s and into the 1950s it was assumed that following a girl’s college education, she married and settled down to have a family. All of my close girl friends accepted this traditional pattern of family commitment and becoming a housewife. Moreover, in 1946 the men were back from war, eager to marry and to use the GI bill to further their education. Ralph intended to obtain an MS in geology by the end of the summer of 1947 at the University of Colorado and then continue for a PhD at a still undetermined university. With a certain amount of naiveté, I just assumed that we would marry and both continue our graduate studies. Ralph too, unlike most men of his generation, considered that a possibility. How it all happened I think amazed friends and parents.

RMBL

With Harriet’s encouragement, I had signed up to attend the 1946 summer session at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in Colorado, and then I would proceed to graduate studies in the Botany Department at the University of Minnesota. RMBL is located in the ghost town of Gothic, Colorado. Gothic had been a mining town in the 1880s and after large finds of high grade silver led to an influx of prospectors, it became a thriving community of five thousand people, with two hotels, many dance halls, and even more saloons. However, when the silver yield did not live up to expectations, the town declined and had essentially died by the Panic of 1893.

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At RMBL, Gothic saloon in background

In 1928, John C. Johnson, a professor at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado, held the first RMBL classes in one of the old hotels. In 1930 he bought the whole town for $200 in back taxes and set up the lab permanently, remaining its director for thirty years. During the early years many faculty came from Oklahoma, including the well-known animal ecologist A.O. Weese, from the University of Oklahoma. He encouraged Harriet Barclay and the geologist Arthur Murray from TU to become Gothic community members. Other TU faculty and administrators, including the Langenheim family, had become acquainted with Gothic and enjoyed summer vacations there. Thus my future husband had already been introduced to the beauty of the area, as well as its interesting geology, by Professor Murray.

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Following A.O. Weese and Harriet Barclay on field trip

The courses during the summer of 1946 were the first offered by RMBL following the end of World War II. I took Field Botany, taught by Harriet Barclay, and Field Ecology taught jointly by Harriet and Weese, who had been a Victor Shelford student at the University of Illinois. They used the text Bioecology, by Clements and Shelford, which integrated plant and animal ecology. With the use of Weaver and Clements’s Plant Ecology and now Bioecology, I had been grounded in the ideas of Frederick Clements. Clements was early recognized as the first formulator of a logical hierarchical system of vegetation, but his ideas were controversial. He formulated ideas about the holistic nature of communities as complex super organisms that develop to a climax state controlled by climate. Clementsian organismic views have an orderly neatness, which made them useful pedagogically—especially displayed in his textbooks. However, these views were criticized at the research level, and his overly detailed terminology was roundly decried as bringing ecological studies into discredit. Clementsian concepts were ones that I too would soon be discarding in my research.

The Gothic area is not only an incredibly beautiful environment, but also an exhilarating place to study and do research. There was no end to fascinating discoveries in these mountains, expedited by knowledgeable people who also loved the area. I enjoyed the comradeship of the students, who were a mixture of friends from TU and others from Harvard, Syracuse, Georgia, and Oregon State. It was the first time for all of us to live in such primitive conditions. We shared in good humor the jobs of hauling water for bathing and wood and coal for heat,