Main Street, Wyoming Classics; 110; Mardy Murie

In recent years when politicians began arguing over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge there was one elderly voice that spoke with particular authority. Why did Miriam who was born in 1900 who was instrumental in creating that refuge in one of the areas where she and her husband lost memory had done groundbreaking Wildlife Studies. Marty was in her 90s and a longtime resident of the Jackson Hole area when Deborah Hammons interviewed her in 1997. She told stories of her childhood in Fairbanks Alaska raising children in the wild while her biologist husband did field work and crusading for wilderness throughout her life. Marty died in 2003 you'll see in this program that late in her life she had a loving circle of joyful friends and you'll see too that she never stopped crusading for the wildlife and the wild lands where she spent so much of her rich and rewarding life. Song My love I will miss the little

street. Down with. The saints. Let's dance routine. Becky. Will you get your feet down in the mainstream. Or go for the big bird. Don't upset. Marty NEARY lives near Miss Wyoming nestled in the woods of the Grand Teton National Park. She and her husband all Russ and their brother and sister Mary bought this farmer did once in 1945. I get a kick out of her. Mentioning some of the people that. Have been in this cabinet. For example presidents of the United States. Senators.

Corporate executives of all stripes. And she doesn't evaluate them on their position or social position. It's whether they're good people or not. That's all it. Has been called the greatest naturalist of this continent. She's completely in his life both in the field and later with the Wilderness Society. When Alice died in 1063 Marty dedicated herself to continuing his work. Today she is called the greatest living inspiration preservation in our country. Marty isn't able to go to the loo. And so the musicians come to Martese. Every Wednesday night at Marty's it's Cross takes an elaborate crossword puzzle from the New York

Times each puzzle uses quotes from famous works with the name of the author spelled out on the left. Quotes from Marty's books have been used several times for her for the very latest is never sure when you lose your right to say that I'm. I mean as a real Gorgie here you know we have seen. Your. Cross stick puzzle. And then have dessert and I mean this is a wild night. These wild lights mean a lot to us. I love her. It's just that simple I love. Marty has been ill respond in these evenings with their friends or savored by all of them. In a very gentle powerful person. She's. She's convincing and she believes in what she does so.

Passionately that it just works for. Everybody wants to please her. I kind of like the way she still inspires the young people. Kids from Leslie Teton science school come here. And send her letters after a year or two talking about how special girls. But not just little girls were talking about how. They want to be like her they want to do things that she did and she's opened their eyes. He said What a wonderful person. Yes. And she is a wonderful person. Well I grew up knowing her because I grew up within this area. Of course I knew. All of his work. I was a wildlife biologist myself. And just graduated actually went to that manner. So I was familiar with his animal track book. And their works but I didn't know about WAP or the wilderness and until I met her that I

read. That book about Jackson home. Marty has written several books. But today books are being written about her. The big thing I always quote her is saying and she must have said that during some of the time you've been here one of the most important things she was ever told. Don't ever lose your sense of curiosity. Beauty is a resource in and of itself. I hope that the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by. Are so poor that she cannot afford to keep them. Marty merry December 18 1995. The year 1911. Marty at the age of 9 travels with her mother to Fairbanks Alaska where her stepfather is the assistant U.S. attorney Fairbanks was a rough and rowdy gold mining town 23.

I remember. When we weren't allowed to be on front street because that's where all the drunks are more. Banks were though they were run on Mother Earth trying to keep them quiet you know and then not knowing who you were. Why not have some fun about it. That's the way it all wrong. Marty ran errands for her mother with her dog and SLED but stayed away from the part of town which had a fence around it. I remember my mother went off. The question was about because the. Lady told the fourth. Row. Robert of all the. Ladies of. My. Age have a little cabin here a. Little. Brandy variety right.

There at the. Fair banks was eight days by horse life from the nearest town isolated from the rest of the world. A few children in the area were enjoyed by the whole community. That's the room. Where the reason for getting such a wonderful place for a. Child to. Grow up in really because they have. Their birth plan you love and affection and. Healing. Giving your own. Leftover prevailed. And that was just all part of the whole strange network that was. Part of their banks and that. They were. Never of. Some of them are. Just proud of being different than the rest of the world. Marty's book too in the far north tells the story of her growing up in Alaska and eventual marriage to old us. She writes that one day her next door neighbor Jesse rest came home from work and made an announcement.

And he came in the door and said Today I met the man Marty out to marry. From the beginning Marty in all this knew they had something special just sort of a. Quiet. Romance. But it was we we knew we were walking into something. But. In 1924 Marty became the first woman graduate of the University of Alaska. And later that summer on August 18th her birthday she and all of us were married. And happened to be this nice little. Additional tourch and break down the code book. Alice had been doing field work and agreed to meet Marty for their wedding at the church. Marty traveled by steamer with her mother but all of us arrived late so we were married at 4 o'clock in the morning. Ev and Vic in the Mission Church. We had to say

goodbye to her mother and. Then mine. I'm Elizabeth my. Rags maid I'm. All of our folks want on the on the steamer Jacobs. That toward simple Generation Y. We just we have new life. And because a fair size of the village and. There was a young Eskimo boy who had. A cabin he would rent to somebody. So. We wouldn't. Have a. Recognized that we were in Iraq. After a short while in the cabin all of us and Marty took off on dog sled to complete all this is work in the field. All us describe Marty is a real sourdough. Someone who could take whatever Alaska gave but one day he was gone well past dark collecting specimens cold and alone in their tanned the new bride began to

cry. He found me crying in the sleeping bag and he thought oh dear where was Martin. Here I was. Going to. Be like that. Yes. But. The famous words that gave me at that point read my darling things take longer than your know you think you know. That night Marty came to terms with being a scientist wife. Well your fiction increased with every day. Went by. Until nothing else mattered. All this is work as a field biologist required to be collecting preserved specimens in addition to making sketches and detailed records of the areas they traveled. One field assignment he received was to be Old Crow River for purposes of bending

all over were all the mosquitoes in the world were there. And. Then and not nearly as many ducks geese and you know bad liberal scientific specimens. They weren't as theirs. I. Suppose. No Mrs. Somebody had in that Biological Survey right at that time. Oh sort of working for the biological sort of thing so that was a regular rhythm to our existence. But sometimes we had to perform of. Abouta the written word. Accompanying Marty you know as was their 8 month old son Martin and their old friend Jesse Rast for four months. Fifty feet of boards and gear would be their home as they traveled up the river. Only 80 miles from the Arctic. Well the All-Pro river in the U.S. river just hardly any current

damage so it was easy enough to. Camp along. Set up a tent every night. And just had his own town. But he had a nice tenor voice and at that time I had more voice and I have mo. Yes. And you sing it all had been a big part of my life for that was that was that someone just would be pulling over with appalling state that thing and singing and I'd be singing wrong. Right. Certain right behind him on that bench. And mostly those. Have you tried though. Almost place and mostly you place in the world I guess. But by that time Mark and I was a little. Crawling around you know just having a wonderful time.

Yeah. In 1927 all this was sent to Jackson Hole Wyoming to make a complete study of the like history of the valleys heard the world's largest Marty soon joined him with two year old Martin and seven week old Joanne for wonder and hope of really. And had a chance to be just. Very unpleasant. It was a difficult time in that part of the country. Locals felt threatened by the newcomers and didn't like the changes which were happening and drove them to me that it was all a very mysterious. Idea that you had to act in a certain way and. That what. I thought their ideal of a life that but that. John D Rockefeller was slowly buying up available ranches which he planned to preserve in the

national park system. In addition work was being conducted in preparation for the addition of the northern half of the Grand Teton National Park which was created two years later in 1929. In order for a ticklish situation because they were so. Ridiculously hateful. Toward her that he had little people who would come into their value to reside there about him. Lieberthal on. That included. Are your Marty recall the Ladies Aid meeting she attended at a local church. Oh ladies. Are in the kitchen setting up the meat. And. Thought oh all there are there's a bunch of those Park Service people on the right of the father to come down here today. You know what they want to bother with us for. Ever I was stood back and just listen. And look and I thought

for sure there's no way for anybody. To live with all. Their. That's the way the sentiment was in those early. And. At a time in. History. Listen Marty raise their three children Jackson while us worked on his study of the area is heard and almost his mother eventually came to live with them. Cute little Norwegian mother. And she just. She just loved the heels of number one. There are 13. Living in a tent. Not. All of them that you have shoot she took. It was harder. For her the Farma been out. Earlier And her for her. Son. From. The movie. Were national research. She was here. For the

last 10 years of her life before she passed away. You get so what you do from rumor. And. Rhythm. Every. Every summer you're doing something a little different. And. In the course of that when you're in Jackson Hole that the only words that you use you know. You watch to the animals and. All the. World and some are animals. And have and we would go or so when we would set up camp. We like to camp on which film critic which is a for Terrio for 7th grade just right up the road here. By the mid 1940s almost completed his study. He decided to quit government service and to enter the struggle to preserve the continent's remaining wilderness.

Just one more thing that I have learned to do was. Gregg shorthand and. Free this from the right. You know. Thank you. You're reading Marty's early years and books have inspired countless readers but it is her conservation work of the past decades which has brought her national recognition. How is she done so much. She worked hard at it. For a long time she had correspondence around the world with. A couple of hundred people that she kept up with. And. The murals have. Inspired so many other biologists environmentalist conservation this. World of this proponent. That they're like.

Her offspring. There's a constant stream of books that they are writing. That come in. To this little cabin here. And that keeps her going. And after almost died she decided. She was going to keep up his work. Because all this is alive to her. He's alive to her even though it's been. 30 plus years. Quite quite remarkable. Senator something Aster why we need wilderness. And. In essence she was saying that we all need it. Not any one particular. We don't always have to. To visit it. To utilize it. To understand it or need it. But just

knowing it's there. Is enough. Just knowing that wilderness is being preserved. And that it's there. Is enough for all of us. And wonderful wonderful example of what a human being can be. Someone who has aspired to be like. That. Tremendous as I say this great interest in people and this keen curiosity. About everything. That she considers worth knowing about. Well he's 94 years old. And she's dedicated her whole life. To. The world around her. Marty's efforts to continue work after his death in 1983

expanded to the newly formed Science School just outside of Jackson. In 1973 Marta her sister Louise and Louise as has been paid off gave the Teton science school their extensive natural history collection. Adolf a renowned naturalized it was always his brother. As far as the miry collection itself goes a lot of their. Items their specimens are in the Smithsonian. And then a lot of them are also at University of Alaska. So we have a portion of these. Yes it is. It's a very significant collection. The neat thing about that I have to say is that. Part of the I guess the mandate or the instructions from the family is that they wanted the collection to be used and not stored away. It is stored obviously to keep it but not stored away and not touched. So we have a lot of specimens that that the students here actually touch and handle and and look at.

And I think that's very significant. In addition to the museum and its artifacts Mardi invites students to her house. The other thing that she shared with them was this I recollect from St. Lawrence Island and it's a wonderful collection of carvings. And so the kids get to look at that and then there's cases that have other things around and and. And they they they seem to. They respond so much to her. To her stories that she's telling. And I think what it does for them is that it it it shows them what a life of a field biologist is about. And what one does when one goes out in participate in that kind of life and the monumental accomplishments. I mean the things that all of us and Marty and Louise and I did were really amazing and that they too can do it. Well she's very good with children she has groups come here to the house

and she feeds cookies and shows them a. Reiver a collection and tells them stories. And they they're always impressed with her and I think they go way convince that this is a wonderful lady with I think some of the kinds of things to do. And even if they were not to become field scientists I think that she's shown them that by looking by opening your eyes by by opening your heart that you can become knowledgeable and appreciative of the earth and and care about care about what happens to it. So she she's a structure you can do I think she has incredible impact on students both youngsters and adults. She's made a lot of difference in my life because she makes me think about. About. Speaking for things that I care about. I can think of lots of times when people have. Called up.

And said May we please come and have your water grand for a book. Your book orographic your book. And she. Will is always gracious lets them come even if its a bad time and they will stand there and almost invariably will say you have affected me and I have gone out. And tried to do. So in my community. She does not tell people what to do but by her example and by the words she uses and by the way she puts it. Somehow you walk away and you think. I. I think I'm going to think more about that. And I think I can make a difference to whatever. All this and Marty were instrumental in the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge which was created in 1960. She's received numerous awards including an honorary doctorate from the University of Alaska and the prestigious Audubon medal.

But from everything we've heard and read and she talks about. They were in love. They were a real couple. I love everything about her. I think she's a wonderful woman. She's. A wonderful environmentalist. She's a great lady. And she is a very. Gracious. Generous. Loving. Human being. Which seems like there's fewer and fewer and worlds in life. We have a sort of a. And we say we focus we. Gather around her. And

she is. She's exceptional. And. We're just very lucky to be part of it. Loved and admired across the nation surrounded by friends and devoted to educating future generations. Marty NEARY lives today as she always has. Enjoying each and every moment. I thanks to Marty for allowing us this time with her. And thanks to you for joining us on mainstreet Wyoming. Driving down the road I was thinkin the wheels us singing the song by oh boy just a little low down the street think stream below the clouds piled up like coal oil robot as white as the sea. A big old crow on a dedicated little heaps in their own home down the road. It means the same thing. Less chance through baggy clothes on wheels won't Burwell you got your

feet down in the street. From Fall River to the Wind River rares from Oregon Trail the Teton Poulter's hill to the deep coal beds on the D train rolled into the mailbox bedroom with bugs big money the movie stand square with. Nobody here going to toggle like the wind in the Buffalo right. Now. Things. Seem to be listening with radio beat black belt believe me.