Lucille Stickell oral history transcript (Part 2)

              LS – Lucille Stickel NC – Nancy Coon RC – Richard Coon R? – Russ ?

-- When I was on my Fullbright. No, I had two assignments…

-- You were …

-- I was called a ‘senior scholar.’ I told them that meant experienced, not old. But, I had

two assignments: and one was to teach one class at the university, Charles University;

and the other was to consult with any non profits that wanted me. So I managed the

consulting, fundraising, public relations, and so on just worked for the non profits. Very

flexible very loose assignment. I mean it ... You could have done essentially nothing, but

I didn’t. I met a lot of people and did stuff. There was very little structure to it. It was a

pretty nice assignment.

-- Lucille, we brought this Fish & Wildlife Service tape recorder…

-- This little recorder. Some of the conversation is historic we thought. Because of

Patuxent and Russ and you. And some of the conversation ... we wanted to save it.

-- Do you have any objections to that? If it just sits on the table?

LS -- Well I don’t suppose ... I could have any objections.

-- All right now, if we say anything bad turn it off.

-- We’ll erase it.

-- Russ, do you have any objections?

R? -- No.

-- No? Ok.

-- The people here before …

-- Yeah.

LS -- … and the photographs …

-- Uh huh.

LS -- Just amazing.

-- They really were, and I think that Deborah, Don Clark’s wife …

LS -- Yeah.

-- I think she’s still trying to work out some sort of a … a compilation of all the

photographs.

-- A movie cd.

-- Yeah.

-- For you, and for all of us. ‘Cause everyone had such a good time and said let’s do this

again.

-- Microsoft movie maker…

-- Oh, ok.

-- And what you do is just bring in pictures ... create slides, and bring in pictures and the

… you put music to it and you can … delay the pictures, etc. etc. Turn it on and it’s a

movie. So they’re …you’re going to see some more of them. Those movies and

pictures.

-?-

– Yeah. Well, you know the first thing that surprised us was Tom O’Shea. And I

thought, ‘My goodness, Lucille is not going to know Tom O’Shea. I barely know Tom

O’Shea’. Of course, you knew him in Florida, right?

R? -- No

-- No?

R? -- I knew him in Colorado

-- Ok. What were you doing in Colorado?

R? -- Well he was -?-

-- Yeah, he still does.

R? -- -?-

-?- I don’t know.

-- Ok. Well, anyhow, he came … He came and was very nice -?-. He really enjoyed the

group.

-- You knew everybody I think, Lucille.

LS – What?

-- You knew all of those people.

LS -- I knew the pictures. I think there was one person in the pictures that I didn’t

remember. It could have been somebody that was there after I left, you know.

-- Uh huh.

LS -- I can’t be sure. But uh …

-- That might ... that might have been …

LS -- They said ... they first ... they went through all of the pictures and picked out good

ones, you know, everything. Sent it to me. And then a little later on, I guess I must have

been talking about it or something, they sent me all the rest. I got a big pack of pictures

that big.

-- Wow.

LS -- And another separate package of just the men who did the… did their work in …

-- Well, Larry …

-- Don, Don Clark,

-- and Deborah …

-- Deborah and …

-- And Barnett Rapp.

-- Barnett Rapp.

-- Yeah.

-- And Dave Hoffmann.

-- Dave Hoffmann.

-- … and you knew them. You remembered them.

LS -- Yes.

-- Yeah.

-?-

-- Larry and his wife came through Gainesville about a year … or a more than a year ago.

And they ah ... and Larry was visiting -?-

-- Right. Where he had done his ... ah … politic work.

-- I don’t know that they went to see the -?- but he had done some work over there and

then I forget there was another place in Florida -?-

-- They stopped by here to see Lucille.

-- Yes.

-- Larry and his wife stopped by here and saw you -- probably three years ago. They had

come to the east coast and he was revisiting all the pelican field sites that he worked on

over the years. And he was … And he went to Patuxent.

-- Yeah.

-- And all the way to Florida. Must have driven hundreds of miles.

R? – Well, they stopped in for an afternoon and I showed them around the place. I think

they probably took pictures.

-- They probably did.

-- Well, they need a blog.

-- Yeah.

-- Well she’s got a whole bookcase full of ... picture books. Picture books.

-- Yeah.

-- She likes them. She likes to look at … and she likes to make scrapbooks.

-- I remember when we first moved into Henry and Virginia Fitch’s house, we lived there

for a year when they were on sabbatical, in Kansas, and Virginia, in the bookcase, had

albums, and it was called Ecology of the Fitch, Volume One.

LS – Oh, good heavens.

-- Uh huh. Uh huh.

-- Yeah.

-- Well I remember him real well because he was one of the very first people who came

to Patuxent.

-- Right. Right.

-- Yeah. Larry was ... Larry was there before I came and I came in ... I think I came in

January of 1967. I think. Now the people that were down here visiting you that day took

exception to that. They didn’t think that’s when I came. But, I … I don’t know.

-- Well we moved to Washington in ‘66.

-- Hum?

-- We moved to Washington DC in 1966.

LS – Well, you did. Yes, you did. She … she came on out.

-- Yes. In 1967. Yeah. You were going through files ... Nancy said you were going

through files of the Civil Service out of Washington DC.

-- Right. I went down ... first of all, when we got there I thought, ‘well, I’ll just look

downtown and work on the Mall.’ So I went down to the Civil Service Commission and

they said, ‘no, you don’t do this. They don’t have ... they don’t have people like you

working on the Mall.’ And ... But they said ... I talked to a lady named Anna Beradowski

in the Civil Service Office, and she said, ‘well, I know this research scientist out at

Patuxent. And she comes down every so often and goes through the applications’ …

LS -- Uh hum.

-- You did?

-- ‘card by card, looking for interesting people.’

-- Ahhh

-- People that might work out at Patuxent.

-- So … Anna Beradowski said, ‘I will call Lucille and ask her if she would be interested

in talking to you.’

-- Wow!

-- So that’s how it all started now.

-- Do you remember?

LS -- When we first went to Washington, Bill worked for the Civil Service Commission.

-- You told me that.

LS -- And ... so, we had a good connection. And then when the time came, why, I spent

a lot of time down at the Commission going through the papers -?-.

Well, that’s what she said. She said you would come ... physically come down,

LS – Yeah, I’d come down.

-- … and go through the files and applications looking for interesting people.

LS -- Whether people wanted to or not, somehow or other, when you went through a

detailed application form, you caught onto something.

-- Biology, yeah, or working with birds or pesticides, working with chemicals …

R? – Well, yeah. But there is more to it than that because I went through -?- you get

these little clues like how many jobs has this person had in the last 5 years?

-- Yeah. Uh huh, uh huh.

-- Is this person really somebody who’s going to stay, or ...

-- Right. Right.

-- … or that we want to stay?

-- Yeah. Yeah.

-- Can they spell?

-- Well, and then I remember you saying back a long ... well, I’m not going to hire

anybody else from west of the Mississippi River. That’s what you said. You said that.

And the reason you said that was that you said ‘because they all want to go back’.

LS -- I’ll be darned.

-- Who would that have been?

-- Well …

LS – I’ll be darned.

-- Uhmmm … you were ... That was before you were Director - 1967.

-- Right.

-- You were …

-- She was the Pesticide Research Coordinator or something like that.

LS – Well, see, when Bill came back from the Army I had been ... I had a temp ... what

you call a temporary job in-between times. And then when ... After he came back, well,

they decided to hire me too. We were both working at the same time, but on different

things. I remember you in -?-. You were doing a good job assisting on research projects;

you had to come and sit down and say you were pregnant.

NC -- I remember that, I remember that well, because I … oh, my gosh. What am I going

to do? How am I going to tell Lucille? Or Doctor Stickel, I never called you Lucille,

then. And ... ah ... so ... I can remember there was ... we were doing a Coturnix study ...

Coturnix quail.

LS -- And we were sitting on a …

NC -- on a ...

LS – on a grassy slope, ...

NC -- … that’s exactly right. So there was …

LS -?-

NC -- and Doctor Dustman.

LS -- I didn’t remember he was there.

NC – Yeah, he was there because we were going to kill birds that day, or something, and

Doctor Dustman was the person, he was the Director at the time, he was the person who

was most willing to throw the birds in the garbage can, chloroform or whatever it was,

put the lid on. So ... so I thought, well, I’ll just take Richard with me and we’ll go out

there, and were sitting outside Henshaw Lab,

-- Yeah, Henshaw Lab.

NC -- … on that knoll by the greenhouse…

LS -- I remember that really well.

RC – Now, ‘cause David was born in 1968 …

-- Yeah.

RC -- And so that would have been late ‘67 or early ’68.

-- Uh hum, uh hum.

-- Yeah, so …

NC -- Do you remember what you said?

LS -- Heavens no!

NC -- You said, ‘Oh no!’

RC -- Same thing today.

NC – And then we went on with whatever the other conversation was.

RC – Well, Nancy was working with Doctor Lou Locke, necropsying bald eagles.

NC -- That was the first thing that I did.

RC -- She was necropsying bald eagles.

NC – Well, yeah, and then I was working with Lucille.

RC – Yeah. Remember, you were tallying up data ... quite a bit.

LS -- You were with me quite a while. I was just ... I was just at the point of ... When she

first came in, of course, she hadn’t had enough experience to take up a piece of research

on her own and so she was working for ... helping other people. And ... uh ... so I was

just at the point of turning over a research project to her. Well, that got ...

-- Oh, no.

RC – Yeah. But you ... you weren’t out very long. You worked up until ... I’ve got a

picture of Nancy standing beside multiflora rose …

NC -- Mountain laurel.

RC -- or mountain laurel, between the entrance gate and the main entrance, the main

buildings, very pregnant.

LS – Very what?

RC -- Very pregnant. So she worked right up ... pretty close ... until the baby was born.

NC -- And you know, I can remember then I came back to work. And for a while I

worked four hours a day.

LS -- I see.

NC -- And you said, ‘well, that would be fine. You’ll get just as much accomplished in

four hours as most employees do in eight hours because you won’t need to take your mid-morning

break and your mid-afternoon break and all of that and spend time looking out

the window and things of that sort.’ And so I worked four hours a day for a while. So,

that was before you ever appeared on the scene.

-- Right, I came in 1977.

-- 1977.

-- Yeah.

-- Did you come with the Bicentennial Land Heritage Funding?

-- Yeah.

LS -- Well, you remember the Fran Uhler?

-- Oh, sure. We all remember Fran.

LS -- I was there ... but I hadn’t been working very long, and what’s his name, who was

Director?

-- Ahhh…. Buckley?

LS -- No. It was the next one.

-- Dustman?

LS -- Dustman. Anyway, whoever it was, they went down … they went down to see

Fran and take up the possibility of hiring me.

-- Ahhh …

LS -- Well, Fran’s voice was so squeaky and so loud that I could here everything that ...

everything they said up on the next floor, even. And I tell you that I did not get a good

recommendation.

-- That must have been … maybe, Arnold Nelson.

LS -- Yeah, it probably was.

-- Yeah, he was before Buckley and Dustman.

LS -- And ah ... Of course, he was ... had a good reputation. He’d been there a long time

and he should have understood, ... and ... you know, Fran Uhler was in charge of

selecting refuges and areas like that,

-- Yeah.

LS -- And when he was young that was what he was doing. Hunting all over the west for

places to assemble, for the Fish & Wildlife Service. He did ... he did a good job.

-- Well what happened after that?

LS -- After what?

-- After the squeaky voice didn’t give you a good recommendation?

LS -- Not a thing happened.

-- Well, you were …

LS -- It was quite a while before anything happened. They had to hire this no good.

Went ahead and did it. I don’t know why he was so off on me.

-- Well he turned his ... his ... yeah …

[Overlapping voices]

LS -- -?- doing all right.

-- Yeah. But then didn’t you do a lot of work with Fran? Didn’t you and Fran and Bill

travel in the southeast or south Louisiana?

LS -- We made one trip with him I remember. I can still remember because we did … we

were taking a trip in a boat, and so ... Here is Fran, and he’s got his arm around a girl.

-- Oh, really?

LS – Yes. But that’s the last we ever heard of anything like that.

-- Uh huh, uh huh.

-- Well, maybe that’s why we were a no good.

[Overlapping voices]

-- Maybe that was it. You were ... You were a female.

LS -- Well, Fran was a good man. I mean I’m not going to say anything else.

-- Yeah.

LS -- He had a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge.

-- Uh hum, uh hum.

-- Oh, I can remember even ... Do you remember him? I can remember even, I think it

was the ‘70’s, he was still going off on those trips. In the summertime. I ... I can

remember we would stand out there in the Merriam parking lot and he would load up his

car …

-- Collecting trips and …

-- Yup.

-- Yeah.

NC -- Yeah and he’d drive away and be ...

R? -- And he’d be gone for a month or two.

NC -- Yeah. And we ... And he was an older man, then, you know, and you’d think, you

know we may never see Fran, again. That he won’t make it back. But apparently he had

... He had done this circuit, like all of his life.

LS – I’d forgotten that.

NC -- And he probably had places to stay, restaurants and everything, where people

recognized him, when he came around again for another summer.

LS – Well, you know ... Fran taught all the new employees who were the least bit

interested in the stock market.

-- Sure.

LS -- Business. How to get along …

-- Uh hum.

LS -- And he would spend hours helping them. He did not ... He was an honest man. He

did not do this on official time. He did it on off hours. And they would sit and talk. Bill

was part of the group, of course, and so I can thank him …

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Bill got started …

LS -- That’s the truth. That’s the truth, because …

-- Uh huh.

LS -- He would never … Bill would never have been able to learn that much on his own

-- Uh huh, uh huh.

LS -- Fran knew how to tell him and -?-really interested in it.

-- Uh hum, uh huh.

-- Was it Arnold Nelson … was it Arnold Nelson then who hired you actually?

LS – I think so. Yeah.

-- Yeah.

-- And then there was Buckley … after that.

-- Well, yeah. Somewhere along the line. I think Buckley was the next one. And then

Doctor Dustman, …

-- And then Doctor Dustman.

-- But I’m not sure of that. There may have been some other people in between there.

Dustman was the Director when I came in -?-.

LS -- You remember they had ... What’s was that mans name who was in charge of birth

control?

-- Seubert.

-- Seubert.

LS – Seubert.

-- Yeah. Seubert.

LS -- Yeah. See they hired Seubert. And he ah ... I think he was Director for almost a

year.

-- Is that right?

LS -- Yeah. Something like that.

-- Uh huh.

LS -- And then they decided to relieve him, and gave it to me. And you can imagine that

was a nice humiliating situation too, if you want something that was …

-- That was after ... That was after Dustman had retired?

LS – No… I don’t know.

-- Yeah, I think so … And then after you retired, then there was this complex

arrangement that included Russ.

-- Right.

-- Right?

-- And John Rogers.

-- And John Rogers.

-- Uh hum.

-- Yeah, we …

-- And you alternated turns.

-- Yeah. For about a year or maybe a year and a half. And then Dave Carter …

-- And Dave Carter became ….

-- -?-

-- Dave Carter … Russ and John Rogers, … You recall John Rogers?

LS -- Not really.

-- Well, he worked with Seubert’s group, and he came from ... ah ... that Philadelphia

chemicals …

-- They call it the …

-- Monell Science …

-- Monell Science …

-- Institute

-- Institute or Center, or something.

-- Yeah. Yeah. And he was a younger ... a younger fellow, like Russ, and ah …

-- But much more ambitious.

-- Well, and you became like co-Directors, or alternating Directors, or something, for a

while.

-- Finally they just transferred -?- …

-- Uh hum, uh hum.

-- So what year did you retire? About ‘80 …

LS -- Huh?

-- What year did you retire? You and Bill both ah... in ‘80…

LS – Well, you can subtract …

-- ‘81.

LS -- You had to retire at 65.

-- Uh huh.

LS -- And I was born in ‘15.

-- Uh huh.

LS -- So you can just figure out …

-- It was in the early ‘80s.

-- ‘81

-- ‘81

-- I think ... I think you retired ... ah ... whatever year it was, ‘81 or ’82, and then ... you

stayed a year, you moved over to Merriam Lab …

LS -- I stayed a year.

-- And you were finishing up some publication.

LS -- Uh huh. Well, I stayed …

-- Well, that would have been …

-- Yeah. Yeah.

LS -- I finished ... Well, I finished my publications first.

– Yeah. Before you left Patuxent.

RC -- Do you remember what those were?

LS – What?

RC -- Do you remember what those were?

LS – Heavens, no!

RC -- Contaminants related …

LS – Hum?

RC -- Contaminants related?

LS -- Well contaminants related probably because that’s practically everything I did.

--Yes.

-- But the studies had been done long before.

-- Yes.

-- So that -?- might remember something -?-

[Overlapping voices]

-- The details.

-- Right.

-- What the particular…

-- What they would have been.

-- Maybe the thing -?-

-- Uh huh.

LS -- Well things have changed a lot since then.

-- Yes, they have, haven’t they.

LS -- And some of the people that used to be there are doing research on heavy metals

and things like that. And ... uh ... so the general idea has not gone. But what we didn’t

realize at the time that was, that not only ... not only were we one of the very few places

where this work was being done, but ... uh ... but we had plenty of money. And ... uh …

so, we could … I could hire anybody I wanted ... I mean, any number of people. And so

we soon had a pretty good sized group. And at the time, we didn’t ... I didn’t realize how

fortunate we were. I knew I was interested in the research of course, but ... ah ... I didn’t

really ... Before I retired from there they started to cut all that stuff back from the

Washington Office. And I’m telling you, that they really wiped you –?-. So that I was

almost glad to retire.

-- Well, that’s when the program management systems…

LS -- Yeah.

-- came... came to the fore.

R? -- Well, right it was -?- for several years. But you were very conservative because …

LS -- What’s that?

R? -- We were very conservative in spending the money because when I went to

Washington to visit down there for one reason or -?- what are you doing -?- how come

you’ve got so much money that isn’t spent? Because they were ... ah ... You know,

everybody else was spending every penny coming in and then they got in trouble.

Patuxent had a pretty good cushion. Of course it went away.

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah. Ultimately it all changed. Now, well, you know Russ’ writing a new

publication of sorts. I guess it’s going to be a book. Another book. And ... uh ... Well,

you tell her what your topic is.

R? -- Well, I’m not sure I know what my topic is yet. but, I .. You know in my career

and a ... maybe all of us, but we’ve been in nearly every aspect of the science business,

and ah ... from doing the work, to being supervisors, being a kind of manager type person

to run an organization. In my case, going on to the headquarters. It was horrible, but ah

... you learn things. And it ... You know, there ought to be some lessons in there. So I’m

trying to dredge back through some of the experiences and say ‘well, what are the lessons

that -?-’

LS – Should be interesting.

-?- Yeah. It’s the USGS experience, obviously.

LS -- Humm?

-- The USGS.

-- US Geological Survey.

-- And um ... And that transition from Fish & Wildlife.

R? -- And the USGS has done everything. Every wrong thing you can do and every right

thing you can do … is right there.

-- Yeah they’re an old, old institution.

-- Well they are. And in some ways they are so old that they’ll never change -?-

-- Yeah

R? – And they’ll just disappear and other parts are more -?- so anyhow I’m trying to sort

through all that and ah ... lot of the best experiences were at Patuxent because that was

right when things were happening, and then when you got to Headquarters it was -?-

-- Headquarters meaning the Washington Office.

R? – Washington Office and you were sort of -?- the treadmill-?-

-- Uh hum.

LS – For a long time we had very good people in Washington. They would depend upon

us to decide what to do, how to do it.

-- Right.

LS -- After a while that kind of changed.

-- You remembered ... You mentioned Tom Baskin a lot.

LS – Oh, yes.

-- Because …?

LS -- I think, I thought very highly of him.

-- Yes. His background was more attuned to research and how to speak to researchers.

And he got to a level where he could manage them.

LS – Yes.

R? – When I knew him he was already in the -?- and

LS – Then he left.

-?-

LS – Well, it makes a big difference. And I remember ... You really had a lot of freedom

in deciding what should be done, what should be researched. And ah ... I realize now that

there’s probably not many places that had that degree of freedom.

R? – It’s very interesting because of the groups that went into the USGS, …

-- Uh huh.

R? -- … the biology group, which was us, ...

-- Uh huh.

R? – ... still … still has more freedom than anybody else.

-- Is that because of the nature of the people or …?

R? – I think that’s the tradition.

-- The tradition.

-- Uh huh.

R? – That the centers, that the science centers, where were things happened.

-- Uh hum.

R? -- The Washington office was there to get the money and then …

-- Uh hum.

R? -- … And, obviously, there was struggles all the time, between Headquarters and the

program managers and all that, but still …

-- How hard was it to fight for the money? For Fish & Wildlife?

R? -- Well …

-- … budget -?- …

R? – The USGS isn’t very good at it, but that’s hard to tell, because the whole

government is -?- than it was 30 years ago.

-- You mean financially or managing -?-

R? -- -?- so that its good have a lot of freedom but when you don’t have much money you

can’t do much anyways.

-- Right. Right.

-- How did you know that it was important to work on toxicology?

-- Contaminants.

-- Contaminants.

-- Why did you start working on contaminants …

-- …in the first place?

-- … in the first place?

LS -- I’m not sure that I remember when.

-- Why?

Well there was ah ... I think it was ah ... part of it at least was the DDT or DDT era.

-- Well, …

-- …were you before …

R? – There were huge dialogues going on -?- got peoples attention when whole flocks of

geese were -?-

-- After WWII, in the ‘50s.

LS -- Well, and things were happening, I think. Perhaps that may have been true that

there could have been a few examples of die offs of waterfowl or something that would

have been … there were certainly things that were alarming the public.

-- There was, of course now, everyone looks towards Rachel Carson’s book …

LS – Yes.

-- As being …

LS -- Yes.

-- Do you agree with that?

-- A watershed publication at least.

-- But how does that fit time wise?

-- That was later ...

-- In the ‘60s.

-- Yeah.

-- Later that some the early -?-

-- Patuxent had been doing stuff.

-- I think Jan Robbins was doing DDT research in the ‘40s, late ‘40s?

LS -- I wouldn’t be surprised.

-- Well, those earthworm studies right there at Patuxent …

-- Uh huh.

-- Those earthworm studies, in the tank, with the dirt. And ah ... those started a long time

ago. They were monitored every year.

-- They monitored earthworms to see what whether the breakdown products of DDT were

still present in them.

-- Right.

-- Like every ten years they dig up some more earthworms.

-- Yeah. This was a …

-- --?- heptachlor was ….

LS -- I know that ah ... Jan was very active in this area because he … I was looking for a

job and he ... he got it instead.

-- Ahhh.

-- But, well, I can tell you when it started because the first turtle studies were -?- it was a

portion of the turtle studies that had to do with the DDT era.

LS – No, not with DDT.

-- What was it?

LS – Turtles? I’ll tell you about the turtles. Incidentally there’s a little turtle sitting over

on that -?- and that little turtle was given to me lately. And, I believe you made it didn’t

you?

-- No. Deborah ..

-- Deborah Clark. Don Clark’s wife made that turtle.

LS – I see.

-- got it.

-- Cute, isn’t it.

-- Cute.

-- Yes.

-- Is it a good box turtle?

LS -- Yeah, apparently.

-- So how did that get started?

LS --Well, I’ll tell you how it got started. It was um … nothing to do with all these other

important things that we’re telling about, but um ... I was ah ... I was employed,

temporar--, I mean part time, temporary part time, and uh ... so, I was spending a lot of

my time in the woods, among all these wonderful beech trees in this wonderful area along

the river. And um ... I was working there. And uh ... I spent a large part of my ... I was

not working full time, but I spent a large part of my time in the woods poking around and

studying the turtles and so forth. And, uh ... so, by and by, along comes the change

where they decided they would hire me and now who -?- in charge ... it was ...

-- Arnold Nelson, I think

LS -- Nelson ... And, so here I am and I’m in the midst of this really important work on

turtles, and uh ... So, I really didn’t want to stop it. And so I went to him and uh … I told

him about it and I asked him if it would um ... If I put in the extra hours on the work --

regular work -- if it would be alright if I would take a certain number of hours every day,

or the day when I was needed, during the summertime when the turtles were available.

And uh ... so he said yes, that was alright. So, I was officially approved to study the

turtles. But it was not an official ... it was not an official study. And it was not listed as

such, or anything. And uh ... by and by, I continued this, and undertook other things like

population dynamics and things that one was doing, but I kept that other up for a long

time, and I finally uhm ... got to a point where I could stop and uhm ... I decided that uhm

... I would write to the University of Michigan, and, with a copy of my paper, ask them if

they would accept this for the doctorate. And, low and behold, they wrote back and said

yes.

-- Wow.

LS – And uh ... so ... Before I left the University, I had completed all of their

requirements, the academic requirements of different kinds. And ... so that I had done

everything except the thesis. So here was the thesis. So, you see, you can credit him for

letting me do this.

-- Yeah.

LS -- Of course I worked pretty hard for it.

-- Yes, you did.

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

LS -- Day after day for a long time.

R? – As I remember the -?-, apparently other people started marking turtles and it was all

… it wasn’t very good they were … in 1943 and that you had taken over in 1944.

-- That would be during the war when Bill was gone. Were you doing this while Bill was

gone?

LS -- I suppose I started it when he was gone.

R? – Because 1945 was very good -?-

LS -- I was just looking for something interesting to do. And it was interesting.

-- Was this the … was this the putting the thread bobbins on the backs of the turtles?

LS -- That was part of it.

– Yeah, and then following the thread and seeing where they went.

-- Ahhh…

-- Defining their home ranges or ...

LS – Well, there were a lot of aspects to it and uh ... even after we moved here to North

Carolina I got letters from people in the Carolinas who were interested in checking into

the turtles for -?-. So it was nothing connected to contaminants or anything like that.

And the turtle business was strictly an academic or whatever you want to call it. It was

about the population history of the group. And I don’t think that up to that time there had

been much time, much effort, put on anything quite so trivial as ...

-- As turtles.

LS -- As turtles.

-- Uh huh.

-- Uh huh.

-?-

LS -- I was surprised when they wrote back and said sure.

-- Sure, that would be fine. We’ll accept it.

LS -- Yeah. So I went ahead and polished it up and published.

-- So that must be a pretty highlight in your career then on the ah ... when the ah ..

LS – Oh, yeah.

RC -- When you went back for your thesis defense and your oral exams and so forth?

LS -- Hum?

RC -- Your oral exams and your thesis defense … of some kind.

LS – Yeah, I went back up there for my tests.

-- And then you were awarded the doctorate.

LS – Yeah. It was ah … really it just ... it was just luck, you know, really. ‘Cause I was

trying to find interesting things to do that I could do in the woods ... the woods up there.

What I wanted to do was just spend time …

{Overlapping voices]

NC -- …. in the woods.

LS -- …. in the woods.

-- For your major ... what was your major at the University of Michigan? Your major --

you were in biology?

LS – Oh, yes, sure. I was in ... well, a zoologist.

-- A zoologist.

-- At the University of Michigan

NC -- And that’s where you met Bill?

LS -- Yes.

-- Yeah.

-- Uh hum. Uh hum.

LS – No, I didn’t ... I didn’t do any research at the University of Michigan at all. This

was it. I met with a professor, -?- I can’t remember his name but, ah .. I certainly

appreciated it at the time.

-- Sure. Sure.

LS -- I couldn’t believe it, really.

– Well, it’s interesting that you even asked. A lot of people just never would have

thought to ask if they would accept it.

LS -- Well that could be but, ah … I had done a lot of detailed work.

-- So then how ... how did you transition from there into contaminants work?

-?-

-- Uhmmmm. There was an early study on um …

LS -- See the thing was that ... that would … became the real work, that was the official

work.

-- That’s what I thought I heard that the turtles were on the side but you were really

assigned to contaminates.

LS – Yes. And when I got to be one of the employees ... I needed to have a job.

R? – Now as I remember it the ... the pesticide work more or less involved the farm

wildlife group -?-went out of favor -?-

-- Yeah, you’re right. You’re right.

R? -- And it was still agriculture but it was kind of -?- …

LS -- I’d forgotten about that. That it was … it was connected with -?-

-- Ahh …

R? -- The original idea was -?- plantings and so forth -?- wildlife.

-- and hence all the multiflora rose and such … on the center.

LS -- I remember that now.

R? – … that fell out of favor never produced very many …

LS -- See, he remembers all these things. I didn’t remember a thing about it.

-- Got that kind of a memory.

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

-- And so then ah ... chemicals were being applied to agricultural lands.

R? -- Well, right. Right. There was a … I think that the ... the food habits work, which is

a part of it. -?- a part of it. -?-

[Overlapping voices]

R? -- And that was totally fallen out of favor and they were letting people go and they did

the new …

LS -- Well, Bill and I went on field trips in a number of places where there had been

accidents, of animals being killed. One of them was right down here in North Carolina.

Came down and we spent ... I think we spent 6 weeks or some big long period of time

down there working on that and then came back. Yeah, it was ... just really kind of a

strange story, but …

-- What were some of the early papers?

LS -- Huh?

-- Some of the early papers that were first published on that?

R? -- I remember ... I remember that. I don’t remember the paper but that there was a

study in Texas what was a military base and they had a tick problem.

LS -- Oh yeah. We went there.

R? -- Yeah, they had to use massive amounts of ddt. Lots of things turned up dead.

LS -- Uh hum. Yeah. Yeah, we traveled around a lot, different places …

-- Well, and you had ... Patuxent had the ah ... had the animals penned, did they not. For

food habit studies. They already had penned animals.

-- I don’t know if the ...

-- There were penned animals there that Fran Uhler -?-

-- I don’t know if they did any food habits work ... with penned animals, at Patuxent?

LS -- We did a little. But not very much. We ah ... we did a lot of trips to different parts

of the country to work on well there’d be big news about waterfowl die off or something.

We’d go there, be assigned, and stay for whatever length of time.

-- Didn’t you work on ah ... woodcock wings? Contaminants in woodcock wings?

-?-

LS – Oh, surely not.

-- Les Glasgow ... Lesley Glasgow ... Lesley Glasgow in Louisiana. That’s where …

LS -- I remember his name.

-- Where the wintering woodcocks were. It was an early study …

LS -- Ok. Alright. You’re right

-- -?-

-- -?- … wings, and I thought there was a study where they analyzed woodcock wings.

-- Well, they also went to Louisiana to study heptachlor, didn’t you?

LS -- Study what?

-- Study heptachlor ... heptachlor?

LS -- Oh yes.

-?-

LS -- Yes, we …

-- It’s interesting to me to hear that what you worked on was driven by things like what

was in the news, or what the people felt was an emergency or a big issue, rather than the

way an academic scientist does.

-- Uh hum.

-- Where they work on whatever their advisor works at, you know. But to have that

external influence would seem to fit with the nimbleness that he’s talking about…

-?-

-- ... being able to respond to the real needs of ... Even identifying the real needs. How

do you know what’s important for government scientists ... to work on?

LS -- Well, I remember a meeting we had once. We were talking about the cause of the

chemical analysis of ... and where would you analysis to determine whether this is -?-.

And our chemist said, we had quite a few chemists, and they had determined that ah ... it

was in the brain. And ah ... So, I reported this to a great big meeting with the

Agricultural Department, and the top dog stood up and said that ah ... that I must be ... I

must have made a mistake, because their scientists did not find that out.

-- So it must be wrong.

-- Wow. Wow.

LS -- Well, I was so mad.

-- ‘Cause you were right and they were wrong.

LS -- Well, it was humiliating.

-- Uh huh

LS -- Because the Department of Agriculture was big stuff. And we had not been out of

the Department of Agriculture very long, since we started to work there. And they ... So

we were ... They looked on us, in fact they ... They released the toxin - the Agriculture

Department, released them. And that’s when we became Patuxent.

-- Ahhh ... I didn’t know that.

LS -- And ... uhm ... they ... uh ... so they still know us, and uh ... dealt with us, but they

still felt that they really were the top dogs and knew …

-- That was Biological Survey?

LS -- Well, by the time …

-- Bureau ... Bureau of Biological Survey

-- USGS?

R? -- Yeah, but the -?-

-- Right. It was in the mid ‘30s that the ah … the Patuxent Research Refuge was

established.

LS -- Was that when it was?

-- Well, yeah. And you always said …

-?-

-- You always said that the US... USDA gave ... gave the Patuxent land for the research

refuge because it was not ideal farm land. It was bottom land. It had the creek, the trees,

the Patuxent River. And they didn’t want it necessarily.

LS -- I see.

-- Is that right?

LS -- Well that makes sense.

-- So that became ...

-- Well, I remember

-- And when it was first established it was still managed out in Washington.

LS -- What was?

-- Patuxent.

LS -- Well, it was managed ... it was transferred to the Interior away from Agriculture.

And, yes, the bosses were in Washington. But for years and years and years they just left

it up to us to decide what to do. And uh ... I think that’s the thing that made the

difference to me, was that when the -?- started to come, when the decisions about what to

do and how to do it, were going to be made in Washington, instead of us being allowed to

do it ourselves, and, for the most part, I sure I did it wrong a lot of the time, but I did try

to turn it over to the people who were going to do the research, so that they could figure

out what to do and how to do it. I may not have always done this like I should have.

Anyway, that was my goal.

-- So, there was approximately 30 or 40 years of good times?

LS -- Do you thing it was that much?

-- Probably not.

-- Probably not that much, huh?

-- When did the good times start?

-- Let the good times roll.

--I’m not sure…

-- Yeah, then they started ... They might have ended at about the time you left.

LS -- You ... you thinking about another start, huh?

-- Well, no. I’m thinking that maybe the good times for, at least the contaminants

program at Patuxent, may have ended ...

-?-

-- … the ‘80s.

-- Yeah. Well, yeah. They were ending then.

-- Uh huh.

-- … during the ‘80s.

-- During the ‘80s.

-- Yeah.

-- And ah ... I mean the best time would have to be when all that money was coming in-?-

-- Well that would have been ... that would have been in the ‘70s.

-- That would have been -?- around mid ‘70s …

-- Really started in maybe the late ‘40s or early ‘50s where we were beginning to

establish … there was beginning to be a viable research program established at Patuxent

and it was sort of …

-- I can remember …

-- … under its own control.

-- I think you and I were both -?- to remember. You and I were both -?- look at the

publications. 1960 or 1961 no publications came out -?- and so during the ‘60s -?- …

and I also remember hearing you say that when Don Clark came that he …

LS ---?- now what?

-- You said that when Don Clark came that he shamed other people into publishing their

results.

-- Did you have anything to do with the chemistry building being built?

LS -- What building?

-- The chemistry building

LS -- No.

-- Now the Stickel building

LS -- No.

-- But, well, you remember it …

LS -- I remember it being built.

-- … being built?

LS -- I remember seeing it being built.

-- Yeah.

-- Uh hum.

-- Ah … it was built in for chemistry? For the contaminants …

LS -- No.

-- … program necessarily, or not?

LS -- I think it had ah … broader needs, I mean …

[overlapping voices]

-- Yeah, when I came to Patuxent in the ‘60s, late ‘60s, the whole … when you went in

the front door the whole west side was wildlife pelts.

LS – I see.

-- That was Carlton Herman, and Lou Locke, and that whole gang, on the west. And on

the east side there was a small contingent of Bureau of Commercial Fisheries people

-- Uh hum.

-- And the rest were pure chemists. Bill Reichel and …

LS – Oh, yeah.

-- … and that group. Not the analytical control facilities, but the chemistry lab.

LS -- I was never happy about the new building I know, but … the way it was.

-- Just because it was a building and took up space or …

LS -- No, because it changed our organization.

-- Ahhh.

-?-

LS – Brought in people from elsewhere.

-- Uh huh.

LS – And actually… but we looked upon it as being something being done by

Washington to occupy space and they would occupy the building and …

-- Yeah.

LS -- It was not good news.

-- Yeah.

-- Before that time the chemistry people were in various labs, in the basements.

-- Uh huh.

-- So … yeah.

LS -- They were strange times though. And we worked … we all worked very hard.

And, I mean, I wasn’t just me, everybody worked hard. At least I think we did. More

people published papers.

-- If they were publishing they were doing something.

-- Um hum.

LS -- It was …

-- People like a …

LS -- Pretty good -?-

-- … Hoffman, and those people that were hired right into the chemistry building -?- were

happy that they had an office there. A place for their gas chromatograms and … got very

sophisticated.

[overlapping voices]

-- … physiology types that were there then.

LS -- I remember when we were looking at peoples papers and trying to figure how many

papers people had published.

-- Yeah.

LS -- As if that mattered. We though it did anyhow. Well, I can’t help but think that in

many … most ways we were lucky. Really. We landed at the right place at the right

time. And we had money to go ahead with it. And there were newly trained people

ready to be hired to do the work. And you just couldn’t have asked for nicer … better

combination. There were one or two people who were something less than good, but for

the most part, they very good.

-- How important were those DDT hearings?

LS -- The what?

-- The DDT hearings.

LS -- The DDT what?

-- Hearings.

-- The hearings.

-- The hearings. In changing the philosophy of ah … contaminants.

LS – Oh

[overlapping voices]

-- The congressional hearings

LS – Very important. I mean it was number one for a long time. And um … it … the

other chemicals that came along were sort of tag ins from that. That was it. Because that

was in the newspaper. And that was everywhere.

-- Well, it certainly raised the visibility of places like Patuxent.

LS -- Yes.

-- For good or for bad.

LS -- And then doing it all over the world, too. It wasn’t just Patuxent. We had ah … we

would invite people from other countries. And they would come and spend some time at

Patuxent. And then, either before or afterwards, they would invite us to go back over to

their country. We had … just a lot of trips to foreign countries and ah … they … we did

not have to pay for these trips because the foreign countries paid.

-- Oh.

LS -- So we didn’t … we had lots of trips. And we had lots of foreign visitors. We had a

good time, didn’t we.

-- I didn’t know that was happening.

-- Well, DDT was banned in 1972.

-- Two.

-- Somewhere in there.

-- 1973.

-- ’73, yeah. DDT banned. Yeah, like I say, that set the stage then for a ripple effect.

[overlapping voices]

-- Yeah. But, there was another whole class of contaminants developed for use.

LS – I remember when heptachlor became important to -?- as we say

-- That because of fire ants?

LS --Uhm?

-- Fire ants? Was that the first …

LS -- I don’t remember.

-- … use?

-- heptachlor …

-- fire ants …

-- I think that’s why Bill and Lucille went to Louisiana or …

-- … cotton fields?

-- … wherever.

LS -- And we went … we had a good trip to -?-. Still remember the place and the people

who kept us there. And it was amazing.

-- Bill ah … Bill did a lot of writing, I remember, to people. He did a lot of

correspondence about contaminants.

LS – He could well have.

-- Did he not. He seemed to …

-- Well, he had the ability …

-- He’d correspond and communicate the problems.

-- Bill was a good communicator. and I think he had the ability to take technical

information and respond to …

-- inquiries …

LS -- Yes.

-- … inquiries, in a way that he could get the message across and people could

understand …

LS – Yeah, I remember that.

-- … what he was saying.

LS -- I couldn’t. I couldn’t understand it myself. But, he certainly knew how to do it.

-- Uh huh.

-- Yeah.

-- Uh huh.

-- I remember these responses would go to the pesticide files so they could be -?-

-- Right. Right.

-- There is a series of correspondence with Arthur Godfrey.

-- Really?

-- In rural Virginia

LS -- Who’s that?

-- Arthur Godfrey … Arthur Godfrey … in Virginia.

-- Yeah.

-- Had a farm or ranch out there. And he had some questions about contaminants, about

the use of them. And Bill and Arthur …

-- Wrote back and forth.

-- I’ve seen several letters.

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

LS -- Well I’ll be darned.

-- signed by Arthur.

-- I don’t know about that.

-- Yeah.

-- We all need Arthur Godfrey …

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

-- You know there is something rings as a memory about his having a farm in Virginia.

his television shows used to talk about it

-- Uh huh

[Overlapping voices]

-- Uh huh.

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

-- Well, he had some questions and concerns, and he communicated with Patuxent, and

Bill responded to him,

-- People are going ‘who’s Arthur Godfrey?’

-- … and then there were …

-- We know who Arthur Godfrey is.

-- … a couple of back and forths

LS -- You see he was responsible for all this business of responding to people.

-- Uh huh. Uh huh.

LS -- And ah … handling these problems.

-- Well he did an excellent job. And I think he really enjoyed doing it.

LS -- Well, I’m not sure, but ah …

-- He -?- a need.

LS -- I don’t think he ever felt that it was really as important as the rest of us thought it

was. He thought he would … I think he would have preferred to do the research work

himself.

-- Uh huh. Uh huh.

LS -- But he did this instead, and in many ways it served a better purpose.

-- Well we were talking, last night, about how most research type people, for whatever

reason, don’t have ah … a really strong ability in communicating to … with people who

need their information, but don’t need it in the technical form in which it is presented.

And not very many researchers are good at that.

LS --Apparently not.

-- Russ can figure all of that out.

-- Well, at … where I was teaching, at Florida, when we set up a masters program in

science communication, and it had started because NASA had requested that we help

them find ways to communicate to more general public.

-- Uh huh.

-- What they were doing and why it was important.

-- Uh hum.

-- Uh hum

-- And so somebody got a contract and did some work on that. And then from there, it

became clear that all kinds of scientific organizations really had trouble communicating.

What’s the problem their addressing? How … why is it a problem? Why is it an

important problem? What are the right questions, you know. Kind of basic things.

-- Uh hum. Uh hum.

-- But when we when scientists frame them, they frame them for other scientist.

-- Right

-- Not for journalists

-- Yeah and when money gets tight …

-- So

-- How do you … how do you …

-- Yeah

-- … talk to the politicians and the money managers …

-- How do you tell people …

-- Yeah

-- … of the importance of this …

-- So they set up this science …

-- … study.

-- … communication thing. And there were a number of people. A lot of them were

more interested in health care side of scientific communication. But there were a few, the

woman who worked with Russ at the Florida Center, was in the program getting -?-

-- Uh hum.

-- Been a science communications person.

-- Wonder what the universities are doing now, turning out contaminates people. any

idea?

-- I have no idea.

-- Oh. Because who’s hiring them, and where are they going, if they are, I suppose, labs?

-- Pharmaceutical companies.

-- Uh hum.

-- Labs.

-- Yeah. I … I don’t …

-- And does fisheries have ahh … much of a contaminate program?

-- Well, the … the … the Columbia lab is still …

-- … is still there.

-- Functioning.

-- … still there and still … that’s all they do, I mean, they -?-

-- And they’re … they’re part of the Geological Survey, too.

-- Yes.

-- Right?

-- And uh …

-- See we’re not … we’re … well, I left Patuxent at about the time that research was

transferred to the Geological Survey.

-- 1990.

-- About 1990.

-- 1992.

-- ‘92 was transferred?

-- Ok. I was gone then.

-- Never been really clear to me who’s gone from the Fish & Wildlife Service. Just found

out recently that the bird banding lab is part of the Geological Survey.

LS -- It was.

-- Bird banding lab …

LS -- Yeah. I read that too someplace.

-- And why is that?

-- Well, because the people that made the decisions didn’t understand much.

-- That’s the trouble …

[Overlapping voices]

-- It wasn’t transferred …

[Overlapping voices]

-- I think it was transferred immediately and

-- Really?

-- And the rational was that they’re doing monitoring.

-- Well, yeah.

-- And ah …

-?-

-?-

-- Well, we know that they don’t do much -?-

-?-

-- That what they do is …

-?-

-- Yeah. Yeah. But that was the rational. that whoever made the decision thought that

this is monitoring and they transferred that wetlands -?-

[End of side one of tape]

-- Fish & Wildlife Service.

-?-

-- And migratory bird management, which is the flyway biologists,

-- They all stayed in the Fish & Wildlife …

-- … they are all still in Fish & Wildlife Service, I think.

LS -- Well, I think so -?-

-- Yeah. Yeah.

-- The Walt -?- and the … Milt … Milt -?- and that group of the world, always stayed in

Fish & Wildlife.

-- But what was formerly the migratory bird research -?- Jim Nichols

-- Jim Nichols was in Fish & Wildlife?

[Overlapping voices]

-- They’re in … they’re in … they’re in GS.

-- Yeah.

-- Uh huh.

-- And what was the -?-

-- Migratory bird and habitat research lab – MBHRL, m b h r l

-- MBHRL.

-- Which you were part of.

-- I was part of MBHRL, yeah. But that was housed right there under Fant Martin at

Patuxent and Fran Percival was the Assistant.

-- Right.

-- … to Fant.

-- And uh … and … uh …

-- Tom Dwyer was in that group.

-- Tom Dwyer was in it, but the other …

-- Haramis … Mike Haramis.

-- Mike Haramis.

-- Marshall Toms?

-- And, ah …

-- No, not Marshall Toms.

-- Yeah … no.

-- Stan Anderson.

-- Stan Anderson.

-- Stan Anderson. Well, I think Stan worked …

-- Stan might …

-- He was … that must have been -?-

-- -?-

-- He did. Yeah.

-- ‘cause he went to Montana.

-- Right.

-- He did worked on the -?-

-- -?- went to Florida.

-- Uh hum.

-- And Fant went downtown.

-- And he retired. Fant retired and moved to …

-- Kentucky.

-- Kentucky, somewhere.

-- But then somebody -?-

-- After Fant?

-?-

owl who was the owl person that -?-

-- or hawk …

-- Oh, that guy.

-- Mark Ford?

-- Mark Ford.

-- Mark Fuller went to BLM.

-- Right.

-- Uh hum.

-- -?-

-- Then he got transferred back into USGS. -?-

-- So, … so Russ ah … over the last few years have you been more comfortable in USGS

than you were in Fish & Wildlife?

-- Well, it … it’s really interesting. In a way, yes. Because of these awful characters we

had to deal with in the early ‘80s and ah … USGS is interesting because I think that I

think that going into USGS as a biologist were changing USGS a lot more than USGS is

changing us

-- Changing us.

-- Uh huh

-- That was such a hide bound organization -?-

-- They had … before … before the transfer, USGS had no biological capability

-- Right. They had one or two people who … were all they had and ah …I went to a

meeting where they wanted to hear about how we … we had this research needs thing

and it wasn’t a great success. Get the regions to filter up their research needs and then we

were going to pick and choose what we worked on, and they wanted to hear about it

because it was a really foreign idea to them, to get outsiders to tell you what -?-. But I

went to a meeting and ah … explained to them, they had representatives of each of the

divisions, and I talked for a while and they asked a couple of questions. Then they

started talking to each other. And none of them had the foggiest idea what the other

people, I mean, what their counterparts

-- Were doing

-- And they were just totally stovepiped -?-

-- Uh hum.

-- So I think that biology coming in has been ah … it’s been one of the best things -?-

-- That they absorbed -?- …

-- To realize things have changed and ah … so, I think, I won’t say we didn’t lose some -

?-. One of the things that we lost was -?- extensive bureaucracy -?-. But, looked at

another way, I think -?- research environment which is Fish & Wildlife -?- becoming

more hostile

-- You think you’ll stay in USGS?

-- Oh, yes.

-- -?- for a long, long time

-- -?-

-- I’ve read about 40 or 45 pages of Russ’ new proposed book. and one thing that he does

say is that they stopped calling that organization the Geological Survey. now the call it

USGS.

-- That happened before biology came in. Most of the people in there are -?-

LS – I have a vague recollection of this period in time, but not any real close one. But, ah

… some of these things you’ve said, I didn’t know.

-- Well, it was something… it was not anything anybody wished for, um … and to work

for three organizations -?- for three years very -?- very uncomfortable and … Nobody

wished for it, but it wasn’t all bad -?-.

LS – Well, I can tell you that I was just glad that I was gone.

-- Well, yeah. About that time … the Washington office was becoming more politicized

and what was the name of the people -?- transferred, SCS people. The SCS people you

transferred, like Eugene Hester - and put him over into the Park Service for a while, or

maybe forever. He retired. But there were no career Fish & Wildlife Service like Tom

Baskin and I there that could … could fight for the research. Could fight for the research

to stay in Fish & Wildlife Service. They were … they were the same people that were

making decisions not based on science

-- Well, that whole change in philosophy about government management …

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

-- … to get … that came in saying, ‘if you can manage, you can manage. It doesn’t

matter what you manage. If you’re a good manager, you’ll be a good manager.’

-- So … so do you espouse that philosophy?

-- No. I think that’s crazy. I mean, how can you be … even when I was teaching public

relations we’d say to the students ‘there is a set of skills you need to know about

communications. And they’re really important. And you can learn them -- how to

communicate. But, when you get out there, you have to work for an organization and

you have to understand what the organization does.

-- What that organization is all about.

-- You don’t just ‘communicate.’ You have to have some content. And, that, I think

that’s the trouble with that SCS philosophy, in my opinion. That you don’t just manage.

You have to manage with in a content context. And if you don’t know research, how can

you manage research?

-- And if you do manage at that level, you’ve got people below you that have come up

through the organization and understand that you can bounce all this off of. Say, ‘is this

a good idea or not.’

-- I think it’s also not true that a really … that a content person will be a good

communicator.

-- A good manager.

-- Or a good manager.

-- They are two separate kinds of skills and you somehow have to merge them. And

maybe you merge them in one person, but that’s unusual.

-- Yeah.

-- Uh hum.

-- Or, maybe, you’ve got you communications person who works really closely with your

content person, or management person.

-- So how many Assistant Directors were at Patuxent?

-- Assistant Directors?

-- Were there Assistant Directors there?

-- When?

-- Yeah.

-- When Lucille was there.

-- Well, one.

-- One.

-- Yeah, I don’t know …

-- Who was that?

-- Harry Olendorf.

-- Oh, yeah.

-- When she was Director, Harry was the Assistant Director. But when Dustman was the

Director, I don’t think there was an Assistant Director.

LS -- That’s right.

-- There was?

LS -- No.

-- No there wasn’t. There was a … there was a Chair of the Endangered Species group --

Ray Erickson. And there was Lucille, who was the Pesticide Research Coordinator. And

then there was a migratory bird type.

-- -?-

-- No, that was gone by then. But then … you had an Assistant Director – Harry.

LS -- Did I have him from the beginning or …

-- Oh, I don’t know.

LS -- I don’t remember for sure.

-- Well, I think you … probably not because … because he had come just before Don.

LS -- I was thinking there was somebody before him.

-- He arrived there just before Don?

-- Well, -?-

-- Yeah, but he didn’t do a lot of … there wasn’t a research biologist there.

-- The way that Don told me, basically, that Harry had been there to do a job. And then

became Assistant Director and Don was hired to do what Harry was hired to do.

-- What Harry was hired to do.

-- Yeah, so …

-?-

-?-

-- Harry moved into the house that Dustman lived in. Wasn’t that it? The first one.

because Stickel’s always had lived in …

-- You lived in … you lived in the house at ah … John Troxler or Troxel …

LS -- We lived in that … we lived in the apartment house first.

-- Right.

LS -- And then we moved into that little tiny house, that … I don’t remember who it was

in there before that.

-- Ah … I think it was John Troxel or Troxler or something of that sort. He was the head

of all the maintenance over the center.

[John Trower – Head of Laborers?]

LS -- Yeah. Yeah, that’s a nice place.

-- ‘Cause Harry and Barbara lived in it first.

-- Alright.

-?-

LS – What happened?

-- Oh, the clasp broke on my bracelet.

-- … pieces?

-- Oh, look. Here’s the clasp. Oh, it came apart.

-- -?-

-- came apart in the middle

[Overlapping voices]

-- Well, you can get that fixed. Take it to a jeweler.

-- I may have done that when I was reaching under the …. get something under the seat

for you. I caught it, and I felt it tug a little bit. that’s when I must have

-- Yes this is my -?-

[Overlapping, very low voices]

-- Ah … Lucille, this is … this is Russ growing up in the Adirondacks.

LS – Oh?

-- In the … in the what … in the 50s and the60s?

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

-- And, so, he gave me this copy, so that I could see what his reading style … his writing

style is. He writes long complicated sentences.

[Overlapping low voices]

-- But I’m going to loan it to you because …

LS – I do. I’d do it. I’d love to read it.

-- Yeah. I think that’d be very interesting for you. Ah …

-- It’s called Star Lake.

-- Yeah ah … it’s about him as a kid. And so I can imagine that you know it’s a slightly

different time frame but it’s probably similar to you as a kid …

-- Michigan.

… in Michigan.

-- Oh, who knows.

-- Who knows.

-- So, you’ll have to read that and ah …

LS -- I’d love to read it.

-- And I do think Russ grew up in a time capsule.

-- Your writing … reading … writing a new book I would like to read it

-- Well …

-- It’s ah …

-- I don’t know if I ever -?-

-- Well, he just wrote one … there is a contest that his sister participated in, where you

write a novel, in November. So, at the first of November you turn in your outline, and

you have to finish it in November. And people all over the country do this. So he just

wrote this little mystery book called ahh …

RH -- Oh, it’s called the “Salt Marsh Slider.”

-- “Salt Marsh Slider.”

[Overlapping voices]

RH -- Which is the name of a mythical turtle.

-- So, when he wins the big competition …

-- Right.

-- … on that one.

RH -- Well, I already won. When you get to 50,000 words you win.

-- You get a certificate.

[Overlapping voices]

-- How many pages is that, approximately?

RH – you know, it’s ah ... on a word processor it’s like one eighty five.

-- 185.

-- 185 pages.

-- And he did that?

-- Yeah, and …

-- In a month?

-- … He did it in like 2 ½ weeks.

RH -- Well, it’s not very good.

-- 185 divided by 30 -?-

-- He didn’t do anything else. He just sat at his computer all day

-- -?-

-- Imagining things.

RH -- It’s easier than …

LS -- I can … Well, he’s … He’s very much the same now as he was.

-- 60 pages a day.

LS -- I can remember, you know, him sitting here talking the same way. And saying

similar things. Very interesting.

-- Uh huh.

-- He grew up in a time warp. He’s still in it.

RH -- I’ll tell you what I remember, talking about talking, our 4 o’clock meetings. you

know, I got to come to the 4 o’clock meetings, and it would be like 6:30 some days … 4

o’clock meeting … the word was we were going to get together for half an hour and

share … and share what happened that day …

--Uh hum.

… and it went to…

-- On and on and on and on …

-- Right. Right. Right.

LS -- Well, in many ways we had a good time.

RH -- Yes, we did.

-- Yeah, we had a great time. What’s that a picture of, over there?

LS -- That … that’s me.

-- That’s what I thought.

LS -- And that’s my cottage at Lake Avalon.

-- Oh, it is. See, I was telling them last night, that you still have a cottage, or a camp, at

ah … Lake Avalon.

-- I’m curious …

-?-

-- That’s what I thought perhaps that was a picture of. That’s why I asked.

LS -- That’s where I grew up. And that’s a kind of a place to grow up.

-- That’s the way this book that …

-- Yeah, that’s what you’re going to be reading about in here.

-- Yup. Yup.

-- Wow.

LS -- See my little doggies, and all that good stuff.

-- Yeah, exactly.

-- Wow. That’s really … oh, what a nice camp.

LS -- From the time we were little kids that was where we spent our summers.

-- Yup.

-- Uh huh.

That was a …

LS -- And I still think its one of the nicest places.

-- Yeah.

-- Yeah.

-- That was near …

LS -- The difference now … we used to have … there was a little group of … the lake is

mile and a half across and almost five miles around,

-- Yeah.

LS -- …and ah … the ah … used to be a group of cottages on one side, nothing more

until the far side, and every summer it was our … pleasure and duty, to walk around the

lake…

-- Uh huh.

LS -- … that was the thing to do, it was hills, and oh, it was lovely. There weren’t any

cottages … there weren’t anything, and ah … a few of us, not including me, were …

always … swam across the lake. I couldn’t quite come to that, but ah … I could at least

walk it. And now, that place is just solid.

-- Yeah.

-- Uh hum.

LS -- Which is just too bad.

-- Yeah, it is.

LS -- Beautiful place.

-- Now, where … where is that from Alpena? It’s close to Alpena?

LS – Well, it’s about 20 miles or something like that. And, heck, in my grandfather’s

day, when he bought the land for that little bunch of cottages, ah … they had … they

couldn’t go from Hillman to Alpena. No. They had to … it was so too far, they had to

stop overnight at a hotel half way between the two places.

-- Yeah

LS -- And he … there was an old hotel there, that ah … used to have people come to it

for summers. And I … I had even stayed in that hotel once or twice. And after … some

years afterwards, my grandfather tore the hotel down and built a couple of small cottages.

And then, after that, even, why we built this little cottage for me. And ah … Enid, now,

is living in the cottage next to that cottage.

-- Uh huh.

LS -- She’s not … she’s not spending full time. One of her sons is ah … planning to stay

in one of the … in the other cottage, the one she’s in now, and just … and move in. Just

stay there. And, you know …

-- Is that Jim or Andy?

LS – What?

-- Jim or Andy?

LS – Jim.

-- Jim.

LS -- You know that, when we moved in, there was a pump, one pump, up a ways, you’d

walk every day to get you … your water. But, do you know by now, what have the got?

They’ve got … of course, they’ve got electricity. They’ve got running water. They’ve

got everything. They’ve completely … completely ruined, you know, those old

memories that we had.

-- Yeah.

LS -- Those wonderful summers.

-- Yeah.

LS -- Just amazing. And you can credit my grandfather for that. But ah … it was pretty

amazing. He was ah … he was a lumberman. And ah … moved from Canada with my

grandmother. and they ah … I don’t know what he had in his heart, but he ah … he was

a lumberman, he had about seven of those places that they had built up along lakes and

rives to gather wood to be shipped to … well, like I always said, they built Chicago.

-- Yeah.

LS -- And ah … so he had that. And then, in addition to that, he bought a lot of land, of

different kinds. That’s where Lake Avalon came in. And my mother -?- afterwhile he …

he took the different pieces of land on lake Avalon, and gave it to his children. And ah

… so I remember well when we were so poor that we could hardly -?- and my … one of

my uncles would find somebody to buy one of these little pieces of land. And that’s one

way where it all got given away. But, gosh, it put me through college.

-- Well, that was during the Depression. You were talking about the Depression.

LS -- I’m talking about the Depression.

-?-

LS -- Yeah, the Depression was … people don’t quite realize it now, but, ah … I’m

telling you, when you had the Depression, you … things were tough, really tough. didn’t

… didn’t have money for anything.

-- Uh hum.

LS -- My mother was … my mother was a teacher, and she taught in Hillman school.

She wanted to teach down in the southern part of the state so yours truly could go to

college.

-- So, your mother had some college also.

LS -- Well, she ah … she went to this … to college alright,

-- Uh huh.

LS -- But it was a teachers training.

-- Uh huh.

[Overlapping voices]

-- Normal school.

LS -- So she was, you know, full time there …

-- Yeah

LS -- … working then, but she wanted to teach down in that area. She could not do it.

They would not let her. She had to teach in the most remote, rural, country school that

you could possibly imagine.

-- She was married?

LS – What?

-- Was it because she was married?

LS – No, she … she … my father died when she … before my sister was born.

-- Oh.

-- Your father died ah … in the ah … Spanish flu?

LS -- Well, the big flu.

[Overlapping voices]

LS -- He died in the big flu.

-- Yeah.

-- We had a neighbor once who had to get married in secret, because married women

weren’t allowed to teach.

LS – Oh, no. She … she taught, but, oh, she had a … you … they … you can well

imagine, what I said so far, that she had one tough life.

-- Yeah.

LS -- A couple of brats she had to take care of. But, really, she moved down to southern

Michigan in order to get a full certificate, instead of just a two year certificate.

-- Uh hum.

LS -- And ah … then, once we were down there, ah … yours truly wanted to go to

college.

-- Uh hum.

LS – And, ah … so, she very kindly stayed. I went down … we went down there when I

was in the 7th grade and then I was able then to go to Michigan State Normal College

which was the teachers college, and then, from there, to the University of Michigan. So

you can I can give her all the credit.

-- Yeah.

LS -- And she had a absolutely awful life, really, you consider, with all she -?- to be

refused to go to good schools.

-- Uh hum. Uh hum.

-- Yeah.

LS -- I don’t know.

-- And then what age … what age did she die?

LS -- What’s that?

-- What age did she die -?- ? Do you remember?

LS – Well,

-- She lived a long time

[overlapping voices]

LS -- It was in the 90’s, somewhere.

-- She lived a long time, didn’t she?

-- She was in Florida, wasn’t she?

LS – Oh, they went to Florida for one year.

-- Oh, ok.

LS -- No. No. She wasn’t in Florida. She lived with my sister, and then she went to … a

nursing home.

-- Uh huh.

-- Yeah. Yeah.

LS – Well, she lived a good long time, but she’d really had it tough. You just don’t know

people anymore that have had things like that.

-- Uh hum.

-- Well she may have had a long life because she had a very vigorous life.

LS -- Well that could have been.

-- Of course, it wasn’t easy for her.

LS -- That’s true.

-- She was able to deal with it, like the people were in the Adirondacks and ah… lots of

places like that.

[Overlapping voices]

-- Some of -?- stories -?- the first place you stop when you get a new home built -?-

LS -- My father’s …

-- -?-

LS -- My father’s brother came down with flu and ah … he went over to … and spent the

night with him. And they were both gone in three days.

-- Wow.

-- Uh hum.

-- Amazing.

LS -- And then, he was the postmaster in the little town, and she thought that ah … she

could take the exam and be the post mistress of the little town, but, guess what? She was

pregnant.

-- Ahha. So she couldn’t.

LS -- So she didn’t have a chance at that.

-- Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh.

LS -- So people … we don’t quite realize what all people went through.

-- During the Depression …

LS -- We think we’re having a tough time.

-- Yeah they don’t talk about it much. Some of them don’t

-- Uh hum

-- But they were … they’re very thrifty the rest of their lives.

-- As a result.

-- Very thrifty the rest of their lives -?- they didn’t spend too extravagantly.

-- Uh hum.

-- My father went in the seminary, when he was in high school. And he told me the

reason he did was that the rectory was the only place he ever went, as a boy, where it was

always warm, and there was always food. And he thought now that’s the life. That’s

where I …

-- That’s where I need to be.

-- He could deal with the rest of it.

-- I’m going where it’s warm and there’s food. And it only lasted a couple of years, but

…

LS -- People had some really hard times.

Yeah. Uh hum.

LS -- Really hard.

-- Uh hum.

-- Well you were in a part of Michigan too that …

LS -- What’s that?

-- You were in a part of Michigan …

LS -- This was in northeastern Michigan.

Yeah, that … just wasn’t a big city up there or anywhere, and lots of things to do.

LS -- What’s that?

-- It was a lumber area. Lumber and ah … There wasn’t a lot of work …

LS -- That’s where …

-- … for people. People didn’t have work.

LS -- It was a big … it was a lumbering area, there is no question about that. It ah … it

really has not gotten developed as much as some of the rest of the country has. It’s ah …

my sister is still there. I mean, not still there, but she’s …

-- There again?

LS -- She went back. They went back there, and she got a job in the school system.

-- And now she has snow again.

LS -- And now they have snow again.

-- Well we do too.

-- Not doing that.

[overlapping voices]

-- Lots of places have snow.

LS -- I’m telling you we did … things were tough, but … but they were really tough in

those days. You just couldn’t … you just couldn’t believe it. We … we got ah … you

know, Roosevelt … I can’t remember the name of the organization that he had for

feeding people, but we would go and get the food there, beef and …

[Low voices]

-?- Yeah. This is Franklin Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt.

[Overlapping voices]

LS -- -?- lots of articles now, criticizing that Roosevelt. I’m not …

-- Your not going to criticize him

LS – I’m not criticizing.

-- No. No. No. -?- workman’s -?-

-- Well, talking about food Lucille,

-- ‘Bout time for a …

-- We’re going to go over and get some lunch.

LS -- That’s what I was wondering … was going to ask you about.

-- Yeah. We’re going to go over there and get some lunch.

LS -- Yes.

-- And ah … we’ve already inquired of them, and they said they’ll feed us,

LS -- Good.

-- They’ll feed us over there. And ah … Russ and Peggy are heading back to Gastonia

this afternoon, to pick up their dog and to visit …

-- My brother lives there

-- Her brother. But depending on how you feel … how are you feeling?

LS -- How am I feeling?

-- Should we come back?

-- Should we come back after lunch, for a little while? Or not?

LS -- I’d be glad to see you. Just give me time to have a little something to eat.

-- Well, we’re couldn’t come back until - one o’clock or so.

LS – Well, now, this place over here … you’ve been there. You know how to get there.

-?-

LS -- And ah … they … they’re different from what they used to be, but ah … I think

you’ll like it.

--Ok.

-- Yeah.

-- Uh huh.

-- We’ll do fine over there.

-- Yeah

-- I went … we went over with the big gang when they were here, you know, and

everybody liked it. We had a soup and salad bar and sandwiches.

LS -- But you can have a regular meal.

-- Yeah. yeah.

LS -- If I’d have thought of this, I’d have just had them bring my meal here.

-- No. No. That’s …

This mini disk was recorded in Ashville, North Carolina on December 6th, 2006, in the

villa home of Dr. Lucille Stickel, within the Givens Estate. She is age 91. She will be 92

in January. Present and heard on the recording are: Dr. Russell Hall -- retired Director of

the Gainesville, Florida Science Center, and former Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

researcher; his wife Dr. Peggy Hall -- recently retired faculty member from the

University of Florida; Nancy C. Coon; and her husband Dr. Richard A Coon. Russ Hall

and Nancy were hired by Dr. Stickel to work at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center,

Laurel, Maryland, for a number of years. Richard worked at the Migratory Bird and

Habitat Research Lab housed at Patuxent at that time.

End of side two of tape