Articles » A Colleague of Alice Eastwood’s
Alice Eastwood
The club has played an important role in keeping Alice Eastwood’s memory alive. She was truly a remarkable woman and deserves whatever efforts we make. We always think of her being stoically alone on those plant collecting trips high up in the California mountains. Those trips were very hard work. She had to take any food she needed with her and she also had to carry large quantities of paper and the other tools for preserving the plants she found. Alice Eastwood died in 1953 at the age of 94.
The fact that she worked alone was true in the early days. Later in life she became very friendly with another woman botanist who was equally remarkable in different ways. Raise your hand if you have heard of Susan Delano McKelvey. Ah, I see no one responds.
The fact that she worked alone was true in the early days. Later in life she became very friendly with another woman botanist who was equally remarkable in different ways. Raise your hand if you have heard of Susan Delano McKelvey. Ah, I see no one responds.
Susan Delano McKelvey, 1883 to 1964, was a granddaughter of Warren Delano, a major player in the opium trade. One of Warren’s daughters, Sara, was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s mother. Susan and Franklin were distant cousins. Sara Delano Roosevelt was a very self righteous woman and clearly never thought about the source of her family’s wealth.
Her upbringing was a far cry from the sad childhood of Alice Eastwood whose mother died when she was still very young. Her father did his best to keep her safe and get educated but she had to rely on herself for most of her life.
Mrs. McKelvey was very well educated and in spite of her wealth and its seductions spent her time with serious pursuits. She wrote a definitive monograph on the lilac family but her magnum opus was “Botanical Exploration in the Trans-Mississippi West” 1790 to 1850. Another plant family beside lilac later took hold of her imagination and she made at least five significant collecting trips to the American South West to find new specimens of yucca.
Her upbringing was a far cry from the sad childhood of Alice Eastwood whose mother died when she was still very young. Her father did his best to keep her safe and get educated but she had to rely on herself for most of her life.
Mrs. McKelvey was very well educated and in spite of her wealth and its seductions spent her time with serious pursuits. She wrote a definitive monograph on the lilac family but her magnum opus was “Botanical Exploration in the Trans-Mississippi West” 1790 to 1850. Another plant family beside lilac later took hold of her imagination and she made at least five significant collecting trips to the American South West to find new specimens of yucca.
Susan Delano McKelvey
She was based in Massachusetts, initially at the Arnold Arboretum (now part of Harvard University) and later in Cambridge at the botanical museum. Alice Eastwood got to know her when she passed through San Francisco on one of her trips. The women immediately became friends and began working together in 1928. Mrs. McKelvey had a chauffeur driven car. Alice Eastwood travelled with her in far greater comfort than she had ever known. Both women were looking for additional specimens of yucca, cactus and agave for their collections.
As Susan McKelvey grew older she stopped exploring and devoted herself to historical research. No detail was too small for her to consider. Dr. Charles Sprague Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum, encouraged her in that just as he had supported her earlier work. Sargent was a significant figure in his day and quite unusual in his attitude to women in science. Beatrix Farrand, a pioneering woman landscape architect, asked him to take her on as an apprentice when she could not learn about landscaping and horticulture anywhere else.
Alice Eastwood collecting plant specimens in the field, while holding her wooden plant press.
“Botanical Exploration of the Trans-Mississippi West 1790 to 1850” opens with Thaddeus Haenke in California in 1791. In 1792 the Scottish explorer Archibald Menzies found his way there too. California was then still a barren frontier region, punctuated by Franciscan missions and a few Spanish soldiers enslaving and subduing the native people.
The book is over 1100 pages long and not for the faint of heart but it contains anything you could possibly want to know about the botanical history of the Western states. There are a few other books in its league. One is Emil Bretschneider’s recounting of the botanical history of China.
The book is over 1100 pages long and not for the faint of heart but it contains anything you could possibly want to know about the botanical history of the Western states. There are a few other books in its league. One is Emil Bretschneider’s recounting of the botanical history of China.
Copyright © Judith M. Taylor December 2024
