This is an oral history interview with Ted Arthur at Diamond Lake Information Center on September 1, 1992.
How did you come to Crater Lake, and what is your background as a naturalist?
I was born in Seattle, Washington, and my educational background from the time I came to Crater Lake was that I had a degree in sociology from the University of Washington and a teaching credential, and was employed as a junior high teacher. When I applied to the park service, I applied to about five different areas, and I received responses from two of them, one from Yosemite and one from Crater Lake. The Yosemite officer was as a protection ranger, and the Crater Lake was as a naturalist. I couldn’t, for the life of me, make up my mind which way to go, and upon the suggestion of my wife, who said, “Well, you’d probably stand to learn more as a naturalist,” I wrote to them [Crater Lake] and said I would accept that position. That was, I believed, the summer of 1958.
As far as what led to an interest in the national parks, I look upon myself as a frustrated forester. At the end of World War II, when I was discharged, I enrolled at the University of Washington to go to the School of Forestry. When I applied there, I was discouraged from majoring in [that field], as the person I talked with said there were so many veterans being discharged and wanting to go into forestry they were having a difficult time in placing them in positions. I thought about that and began thinking maybe I better look elsewhere. Once I got started into a program, about the third year, this whole conservation area opened up and there was a great demand. But I was so far into the program in sociology that I didn’t feel I could pull out and start all over again.
As far as what made me discontinue my seasonal work at the park, there is quite an emotional thing here. It’s very difficult for me to go back to the park because my wife became terminally ill and passed away in 1975, and I feel that the years that we came up to Crater Lake, each summer probably took a toll on her, as she had very weakened lung condition and the elevation there worked against her. She was terminally ill for about three years, so coming back to the park, an area where our whole family invested a great deal of time and energy, is real hard for me. Consequently, the further that I can stay away from it the better it is, as far as my own emotional response is concerned.
