How did you get the word out?
We socialized together all the time. We’d say, “Tomorrow I’m going down to the lake, do you want to come along and help me take some samples?” That’s the way we’d do it. There was no formal program and there was no formal research component to park operations.
You would have lived in Sleepy Hollow and know people that way?
No, I lived right here in this building. It was the Ranger Dormitory then. My quarters were where Mary Benterou is located right now (6).
The library at that time would have been in the Administration Building?
It was right opposite of Dick Brown’s office. I think Dick Brown had the main responsibility for keeping it up because he was in research and needed the library. I can’t remember who Dick’s secretary was, but I know that when Glen Kaye was inducted into the navy in 1966, his wife Harriet became our secretary. She then kept up the library. The library was held in great esteem because it was really the information source for the interpretive program.
My recollection is that Dick Brown was a perfectionist and demanded perfection from the naturalist. Bob Bruce only had to carry on with that momentum, but Bob was nowhere near that demanding as a supervisor.
Did Bob carry the program himself when Glen was away?
Bob delegated much of the program supervision to Dwayne Curtis. Dwayne took over as seasonal supervisor in 1968 when Ted Arthur took a leave of absence that summer. Dwayne Curtis did the assignments for the seasonal staff.
My recollection is that after 1968 there was massive turnover. Bruce and Curtis left, and I don’t think there was a single returning naturalist other than Tom Young and Nancy Jarrell.
