Why did you and he continue a Crater Lake tradition of publishing your paper on amphibians and reptiles in the American Midland Naturalist?
I can tell you about that. Don had been collecting information about the amphibians and reptiles at Crater Lake Park for some years. He started going to Crater Lake when he was just a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, so he was there for years. Don was the sort of individual who believed in publication. He wanted that information to get into the literature. In that case, he accumulated information on the amphibians and reptiles of the park and was looking for an eager partner in order to put it in a form for publication. Well, I turned out to be that eager partner. He wanted to get somebody who was more knowledgeable about amphibians and reptiles than he was. The manuscript was turned over to me and I was supposed to find a publisher for it. I happened to have an old friend from my days in graduate school, who was the editor of the Midland Naturalist at that time, so it was a very logical publication. I sent him the manuscript and he was very glad to have it. He thought it was just the sort of thing for them.
It didn’t have anything to do with continuing a Crater Lake tradition of publishing in that journal? I know that papers by Applegate and Wynd on the park’s plants appeared in the American Midland Naturalist.
You know, I wasn’t aware of that. As far as I knew, Don and I were the only contributors from the park to the American Midland Naturalist. I didn’t realize that other papers had been published there dealing with the park.
Did you know Wynd at the University of Oregon?
Yes, I did. He was an assistant to the head of the department for one year. I got acquainted with him at that time. As I talked with him, I learned that he had been at the park and at one time had been the head naturalist there.
Yes, in the late 1920s.
Did you know him at all?
He died just before I came to the park in 1988. He had written us a letter about the history of park roads, but passed away before I was able to send him a response (11).
He was sort of embittered, having been kicked out as the assistant head of the department (12). Sandy Tepfer, who was the department head at the time, gave him this job. That kind of thing hurts you.
