Jim Bainbridge, who…
Barbara: Jake is dead.
Jake is dead. Jim Bainbridge, who had his first Park Service work at Crater Lake, came from the Navy to Crater Lake as an engineer and chief of park maintenance. Jim is now superintendent of Nachez Trace Parkway where I came from when I retired (15).
Lets see about some of these seasonals, too. Doug Cheeseman still sends us Christmas cards, and he’s now in Saratoga, California. He was teaching junior college.
Barbara: It’s DeAnza Junior College.
John Wirtz was a seasonal and is still in the Portland area.
Barbara: His wife, Felicia, was a seasonal, also.
Yes. There were several outstanding women interpreters. In those days there was only one woman, out of 13 seasonals, as an interpreter.
There hadn’t been very many women interpreters?
I think that Felicia was the first, that I know of. There may have been some earlier in the history, but in recent history, she was the first.
Barbara: And then Susan Twight.
Suzie Twight did tremendous as an interpreter and was great for the morale of the group. And Susie now lives over in Weaverville. The last we heard from Susie was she was a country commissioner. She’d been much involved in environmental work since then.
Was that the period of time that women were first getting into the Park Service for positions other than secretary?
Actually, I think we were on the cutting edge.
Barbara: There’d always been a few exceptions here and there, but for the most part this was new.
