Bob Hunker Interview, 2008

Abstract

Bob Hunker discusses the creation of the Peninsula Group with the intention of preserving Valley buildings and heritage. Hunker reflects on his work in the preservation of Bronson Church and the historical development and changes to the organization and preservation endeavors in Cleveland. The Cuyahoga Valley Heritage Association as it is now known is discussed, with the goal being the balance between preservation and development. Hunker also discusses challenges posed to his organization, such as deed restrictions and foundation policies.

Interviewee

Hunker, Bob (interviewee)

Interviewer

Grindall, Karen (interviewer)

Project

Rivers Roads and Rails 2008

Date

7-2-2008

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

57 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Bob Hunker Interview, 2008" (2008). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 517038.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/111

Related Resources

Rivers Roads and Rails @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Transcription sponsored by Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Karen Grindall [00:00:02] Mr. Hunker, we're going to turn on the tape recorder and Steve's job is to monitor making sure that we're getting the right volume off of the microphone. I'm going to be asking you the questions, so I can't wait to hear your story. And we'll spend about an hour.

Bob Hunker [00:00:25] Okay.

Karen Grindall [00:00:25] And when we... In the next few weeks, you'll receive a copy in a WAV file format on a CD of our interview. Okay?

Bob Hunker [00:00:36] Put your two names on right here, if you will, please. See, this is what I was talking about.

Steve Testa [00:00:51] Mhm.

Karen Grindall [00:00:51] Oh, okay.

Bob Hunker [00:00:51] But never mind. You're not really... I was all off base on... [crosstalk] It's all sorted out now. Alright.

Karen Grindall [00:01:09] You're just, you know, I hate that when people say just a teacher. I am a teacher. Okay.

Steve Testa [00:01:16] We're ready.

Karen Grindall [00:01:16] Ready?

Steve Testa [00:01:16] Mhm.

Bob Hunker [00:01:17] Now, which way am I to speak?

Karen Grindall [00:01:21] You just... This is a very sensitive microphone.

Bob Hunker [00:01:23] Okay, so you'll pick it all up.

Karen Grindall [00:01:25] It picks up even things outside... [crosstalk]

Bob Hunker [00:01:26] Okay. Fine. Alright. Good. [crosstalk]

Karen Grindall [00:01:32] Do what I tell students. No, I don't tell students to do that. Okay. Ready?

Steve Testa [00:01:38] Mhm.

Karen Grindall [00:01:39] I have Mr. Hunker with me this afternoon. And Mr. Hunker, I have a couple of basic questions I'd like to ask you first before we begin our detailed questions. Mr. Hunker, when were you born?

Bob Hunker [00:01:52] I was born in what is City Hospital, Summa, West Market Street, Akron, Ohio.

Karen Grindall [00:02:00] When were you born?

Bob Hunker [00:02:01] 1927.

Karen Grindall [00:02:03] Can you tell us about where you went to school when you were young? All the way up to when...

Bob Hunker [00:02:08] Okay. Yeah, I went to Lockwood Grade School? One through eight, which is at Lockwood Corners, Portage Lakes. And then I took my high school four years at Coventry High School. And then shall I go on?

Karen Grindall [00:02:26] Yes.

Bob Hunker [00:02:26] And then when I graduated, I went to Case Western Reserve. At that time it was Western Reserve. I was supposed to go to Princeton with my cousins or because I studied architecture to the University of Pennsylvania, which I happened to like very much. But the war was on and I was drafted. But I because of some early illness when I was 13, I was considered for out, which I thought wouldn't you know, it would change if I went up, back again. So anyway, I went up there for the summer and I fell in love with Cleveland. And having grown up in the country, although we traveled a lot and went everywhere, I liked the city. And so I stayed. And I think it's a very good university. They had wonderful 100 courses that introduced you to everything. And so anyway, I'm very happy to have been a part of it, which is now Case Western Reserve, and I guess it's Case.

Karen Grindall [00:03:34] So you have lived in Ohio all of your life?

Bob Hunker [00:03:37] Yes, I do have a residence in New York City, in the Village, for 50 years, I guess. The same one 27 years.

Karen Grindall [00:03:52] Okay. Robert, we... In doing some reading background, I understand that you were involved in the original Peninsula group that was very interested in saving part of or as much of the Valley as possible, the Cuyahoga Valley, can you give us some information on that organization that you, I believe, were one of the original members of?

Bob Hunker [00:04:19] I started it.

Karen Grindall [00:04:20] Okay.

Bob Hunker [00:04:22] Yes. I grew up at Portage Lakes at Long Lake, and then Turkeyfoot Island. My parents lived there for fifty years, their final years, both died there, and so Akron was considered the city for me. And when I finished with university, my degree was a B.S. in Economics, although I went to study Architecture, and then I studied some interior design and I decided that it was a business. And if you're aesthetically and artistically inclined, that you should learn the things that you probably wouldn't learn or that you needed to have somebody shove you into. So I went into Economics and so I have a personal degree in Architecture, but my real degree is Economics. And someone along the way said if you are gonna do anything good business, you have to sell. And I do that. That is something, you know, if you're going to be successful, you have to sell yourself or sell your product or whatever it is. And they told me that one of the best places to get rounded education was a department. And at that time, department stores were everything. They were wonderful. So there was an opportunity. And there weren't a lot of opportunities in 1949 for employment. It was like that. So I went to work at M. O'Neil Co. in their design department, and I was there less than two years and got fired because I took... Anyway it was a wholly personal thing and everybody supported me and I went into business on West Market Street in an old house that I restored and got free rent for two years for investing some funds I had for it. And I stayed there until 1962. And there's an involvement of how I got there so that I got to Peninsula, and I bought this old barn. I wanted a barn. And I thought this out very carefully. But the place at that time in New York, Akron, Cleveland, Canton, I went there down to Millersburg and Columbus with what I was doing and the design. And I had two partners, one licensed in architecture so I didn't have to get a license, which I did all except the last course and it just was troublesome and I was busy and so I didn't do it. That was a big mistake. At any rate, I took this barn and decided that we would turn it into our offices. And that's where we are now at the corner of 303 at Riverview. And we had just started. I really paid no attention to the village at all. I drove through it from Yellow Creek Road in Bath, which is where I was living, and I would drive Riverview. You went up to Warner Road and across at Lee Road and that took you into Shaker Square. And at that time I knew that [I-]271 and of course the [Ohio] Turnpike was a reality and that there would be a connection. And I wanted to be close to the airport. Actually, at that time you went to Lakefront Airport. There was no Cleveland Hopkins Airport. At any rate, I wanted someplace that was convenient to all of these different modes of transportation. So that took me to where I am. I got gasoline to at the corners down here at Akron-Peninsula Road at 303 and asked 'em one day, is there a farm or a barn around for sale. And they said, yes, so I went up and I bought it. So that's how I got to Peninsula. So I'm only there are a couple of months. And my dad, who retired at 53 and liked all this sort of thing, so he took over the building project and he said, there's the lady keeps coming up here asking for you. So he told her I'd be there the next day to see how things were going. And it was Lily Fleder, and she wanted to save the Bronson Church. And so she talked with me about it and realized that it was a sensible thing to do. They wanted to move it to Hale Farm and that would have denuded Peninsula, which was fast being torn down or burnt. The G.A.R. hall was slated for a fire drill and the old hotel was still there, but it was slated to be torn down and it was torn down. So anyway, [to] make a long story short, we got involved and she became allied with Awadi Reynolds and another woman in Hudson, and they were facing the battle of saving the bank building, which is the square it had to that was to be torn down and the whole north side of the square turned into a parking lot. So these women were very successful and very determined. And they brought Helen Duprey Bullock from the National Trust. That was a smaller disaster at that time. And at that time, there wasn't a single member in Summit or Cuyahoga County except me. So anyway, they brought Helen Bullock here and she suggested that we start a heritage association. So we Lily and I got together and we started the Hudson Historical Heritage Association and the Peninsula Heritage Association. And I had a party at my house and we all got together. Helen was there, and things took off. We did our bylaws and all that sort of thing, and that was before you had 501(c)(3)s, so we started. We had the first meeting and I have a card here I'm going to give you if you want it. And we called it the Historical... Heritage Association and the whole of it we realized that the canal was so important and our logo is a mule pulling a canal boat. So the board and the first meeting, Bob Bordner, who was the press columnist that started the Peninsula Python, spoke up and said, you know, and I had said we don't have important architecture, we have a couple of things, but we don't have the architecture that Hudson has. And we essentially are very different because Peninsula at that point, I'd become very interested in it. And it was called the seaport of the Western Reserve. So we'd each decided we would split, go our own ways. And at that point we decided that the thrust should be the Valley and the canal. And so we decided to change the day to the Peninsula Valley Heritage Association. And that's how the first portion of it started. And with that came... There was a group of artists after the First World War or the Second World War, which I was talking about when I got out of college, started a whole colony of artists, the Peninsula Players, which is the Peninsula Players part of it and so forth. So we rounded them all up and they all wanted to save it, they wanted to save the Valley. So along the way, we changed the name to the Valley Association and by that time, John Seiberling was involved with it. So I was the first president. I wrote the bylaws. I was fairly... Well everything except we had some very good people. Tres Pincher who was Secretary of General Tire was our legal counsel and secretary, and Henry Saalfield with Saalfield Publishing was vice president and Lily, the Benders, the Congers. And so anyway, we added the Roushes, which is the G.A.R. Foundation, they were involved and she particularly was interested. She had started the library in Peninsula so and report back. At any rate, we decided that we wanted to save the Valley and Galen Roush was a logical one for money, and he was tight as birch on a bark tree, or bark on a birch tree, and he wouldn't give you anything. He said, Oh, that's a wonderful idea. The Garden Club should do something about it. So we went to the state and we had some clout with the state. But the state really were not interested. And we thought about farm, national forests, that sort of thing. And I have a lot of experience because of my family and traveling when I was young. We went to a number of the national parks, so I was very familiar with them and some of the others were as well. So we said, okay, the only thing we'd do is go for a national park. And it was the third year that... We knew John Seiberling. All of us were friends and he lived on Martin Road. John said, well, I'd like to be a part of this. So in my living room, Tres Pincher said what we need is a lobbyist. Well, we can't afford a lobby. And we patched that around a bit. John spoke up and said, well, I'm not so happy being an attorney at Goodyear, although my family started it. So I'll take a two-year leave of absence and run for Congress if you'll help me get elected and find the money. Well, it was much, much easier. Bill Ayres was the Republican and very popular, but he was drinking, and even my mother, who was president of the Republican Club, was just enamored with him and so she said, yes, she would even help so that gave us a real big jumpstart into the election. And the first fundraiser was up at Black Acre Farm, which the Pinchers owned in that riding Rita, which is still up there, we played it up, and that was the first batch of money that we got. John got elected to Congress. And that part of it is really all history. But before the park got involved, I was involved with the Blossom Music Center where it was and getting George Szell down, and all of the emphasis that we could get for the Valley that could possibly be an asset in getting it on a national attention basis. So when Blossom opened, John said, well, let's have hearings and have it at Blossom Music Center. So there were... I think there were 30 Congressmen and Senators that came, and they were so impressed with the whole thing. And Blossom was wonderful. It was a day like this. We were blessed with absolutely marvelous weather. And so we decided, Siegfried Buerling was involved at that point, and John said, well, we'll have cocktails at Stan Hywet and go over to Hale Farm. And they came to my house and I had a dinner party for them. And I think Peninsula had never seen anything like it since the canal days. And, you know, we had security people 'cause all of them had come from the hotels and buses and so forth. And everybody... The moon came out and it was a great night. And so that was one of the things that really got it rolling in Congress. And as you know, the act was passed and in 1975 and all of that part of it. So those really are the grass roots. If it hadn't been probably for Lily Fleder and myself and the other people banding together because they felt there was something there, we wouldn't be here today. That may be very egotistical of me, but.

Karen Grindall [00:17:32] That's okay.

Bob Hunker [00:17:33] I think that, that's really the way it is. [laughs]

Karen Grindall [00:17:35] That's what we want to hear—the story. Because many of us were not, you know, privileged to be there at that time. So.

Bob Hunker [00:17:42] And then I was on the National Park Advisory Board for ten years until it was dissolved. And you may want to go through this in your own way. And if I'm ahead of you, just stop me.

Karen Grindall [00:17:57] No. no, no, no.

Bob Hunker [00:17:57] One of the other things which I think is particularly interesting as to how the park boundaries were defined. And there are two particular incidents. The first was a major one. You know the map we were talking about, that's the line. Okay. I found Blossom Music Center with the Pinchers' young son, because we rode our horses. I have been a... I had a horse, pony since I was five years old. So we rode up and we found the valley where the base is and we would go and have picnics and things. So I really knew the valley. And when we started this and one evening the Roushes and Weinbergs and Cooks used to take a walk and it was a beautiful cold night and they were up at the top of where the Environmental Education Center is now. And I was with them and we walked out and Gaylen's there, and Tres said, Gaylen, wouldn't you like to see all this preserved before you go? Well he said, yes, but I'm not going anywhere. [laughs] And that, I must say, is whenever we thought we needed a federal thing.

Karen Grindall [00:19:26] Mhm.

Bob Hunker [00:19:27] But you could see the outline of the valley. So we used to be down on West Market Street, right where Merriman Road comes to West Market, where the cemetery is, the building is still extant. It was an old house and I can't recall who it was, but at any rate, whoever it was that owned the building—I think it was the realtor that had built these apartments next to it—said we could use it and it was set up for the association. And what was the dining room of this house, and there were, I don't know, there was to be probably 15 or 16 of us with the park board meeting. It was hot. It was ugly. And we were there for three hours. John, myself, discussing how do we do it? So I kept looking at it and I know how to read topographical maps. And there's that elevation 999. And that was just like this at the ridge.

Karen Grindall [00:20:32] Mhm.

Bob Hunker [00:20:32] So I said, why don't we use 999? Well, what do you mean? Some of the men and women did not understand that. So John and I quickly pointed out where the 990 was, took a marker went around like this. That's 999. And so they ended up by passing a resolution to push the 999 with adjustments made to the actual ownership or any other particular natural boundary. So I think that interesting that that's how 999 got started. The other thing, when [Nick] Mileti started the Coliseum, the park boundary did not extend up to [I-]271. It stopped shy of that. So Mileti bought a brick house on 303 about where the sign is and had the people, the people to whom they sold it, which was Mileti, he had the idea that all of that side of the east side of 271 would be commercial. And so we started up buying the land and started buying up where Ebbetts and all of that. Loretta, I always want to say Loretta Young, Loretta was a John's wonderful assistant that did everything. Newman. So Loretta Newman and I had been good friends, and she stayed with me when she would come and we followed this 999 and so forth. But when I got wind that Mileti had bought this house, the woman owned it was related to my office manager who was a Conger. I quickly got her on the phone. We didn't have faxes or any of that sort of thing, but we both knew and so we'd get a map out and she said, I'm writing the boundary now. Well, will John and them pass it if you change it? They were to come up and use the boundary of the Peninsula.

Karen Grindall [00:22:44] Mhm.

Bob Hunker [00:22:44] And she said yes. So we changed the description to follow 271. Well, of course, Mileti was livid. And I belonged to the Cleveland Yacht Club, [and] he belonged to the Cleveland Yacht Club. And so, you know, I knew him very well. And he screamed and hollered at me on the phone and what I was trying to do to bankrupt him. And so, you know, that was that was that was that. So that put an end as far as Mileti was concerned and coming across the valley. The other little incident, which I think is interesting, is the Hale Farm Cemetery. And my parents are buried there and we have an obelisk like the old ones with Hunker on it. And I have a spot, thank God, without the last date on it, and my sister as well. So that was another one and we sat in one of these legacy meetings. At that time, it was not in Akron. It was at Hale Farm right in the farmhouse downstairs. And they said, well, this is a problem. And one of the Hales was the black sheep of the family, decided they had to look after it with burial but they didn't want him in the confines of the cemetery as they had dedicated it. So here we set and here's the cemetery and over here is the black sheep, Hale. So they said, well, what do they do? You can't have this. This had to remain an entity. The park couldn't own it. And it belonged to Bath Township. So I said, well, why don't you just make the cemetery bigger and put him in the cemetery? There isn't anything that says you can't and even the Hales' original deed said that if it were necessary, the cemetery boundary could be expanded. Well, they said, oh, it'd be a terrible problem. We won't know what to do with this land. We'd be best with it... Just terrible. I said, well, I'll buy four lots. And Seigfried [Buerling] said, I'll buy six lots. [Bill] Birdsell who was bad, he said, I'll buy two lines. Frank Cafferty is a Catholic family, O'Neils was lots of kids, he would buy. So that sold. Everything sold. We all signed the papers that we were responsible. We would buy them with the Peninsula Nightclub. And at that time it was the Peninsula Nightclub and I owned it, and we all had more than enough to drink and celebrated. The downside of it... Because all of us thinking, you know, oh, we're young. We're never going to need these. It's gonna be ages. Well, the terrible thing is within the first year, Seigfried's son was killed accidentally before he graduated up here on Riverview Road. And so he had to use his. And it wasn't even months until Bill Birdsell fell dead in the office at the park. So he had to use it. And so in that period of one year, it was almost like a curse, actually, that two of our best people were affected by essentially what we did, but not really. And we're all very happy to have it. And the other thing was that they said, called up a couple of weeks later and tried to do the deeds for the lots. They said, I can't it. Why not? Well, because you have had to have lived at least two to three years, whatever it was, in Bath Township. Well, I had lived at Yellow Creek Road, which is Bath Township, for five years, so it was fine. So there we are. Those are some of the incidents that come back to me very quickly that I think are important.

Karen Grindall [00:26:53] Can you tell us a little bit about this very first organization as far as... I hear that some of the people didn't even live within Peninsula, in the valley. What was their desire that, to get them involved? What did they want?

Bob Hunker [00:27:17] You're saying they didn't live in the incorporated area of Peninsula?

Karen Grindall [00:27:21] Some of them...

Bob Hunker [00:27:21] Well, that's correct. The first people who did, that worked on it that first year, did live...

Karen Grindall [00:27:29] Okay.

Bob Hunker [00:27:30] In the village or Boston Township.

Karen Grindall [00:27:35] Okay.

Bob Hunker [00:27:35] And Boston Township and Peninsula are almost synonymous, and originally, you know, we were all part of Portage County. And Boston down here was developed and designated and settled but before Peninsula because this whole area was considered a swampland, mosquito-ridden and not desirable. And it wasn't until Bronson could see the commercial value of the river and the canal... I don't mean the canal, the Peninsula, and the wood. And he came and of course also it was an opportunity for him to get land less expensive. The prices out here at Boston were much more. And it was, you know, very, very inexpensive to have something in that Peninsula area. And so he had the first sawmill on what they called Sawmill Creek that comes around behind the G.A.R. Hall. It is the water that feeds the the quarry. So the two of them are just, you know, like this, meshed together. And we still are, we still have our good points and our bad points. So it really everybody sort of thought that, and still, I think that Peninsula and Boston Township are the same. And in a way they are. So when we... And it was Bob Warner's exact words, what do you really want? The main thing is the canal and the river. And we kept saying all along and I would give talks, I did 110 television shows with Paige Palmer and this would keep coming up, and Paige at 90 something still lives over on Revere Road. And she was a great advocate for the park that got us a lot of really good publicity. And my father, who knew Ohio very well from hunting and so forth, and they all would keep exclaiming if it had not been for the governor's decree to blast the canal in 1913 flood, we would have a canal system like there is in France. And a lot of us had been on the canal in France and understood that aspect of it. And the dream was right then was to open up the canal, which has now come to fruition with the canal, Ohio and Erie Canal Coalition and so forth. So with that, it was... Everybody that involved wanted to save the valley and it caught on and up and down. And the first thing that the day that I first talked about it on television, that incidentally I have the tapes from all of my shows intact and they're still usable. They're audios. You didn't have visuals, we only had the audio... Was that we did to have this central park, just as Central Park in New York is the center of that megalopolis. This is a megalopolis, and the way we're expanding, Cleveland, Akron, it'll all just be one great big encompassing city or thereabouts, just like Manhattan now is five boroughs but it's one city. And here's the park and the park is here and it's gonna be here, I guess, forever. So that's how it got on. It went right straight up and people became interested. And Blossom made a big difference because it brought people here that would never have come to Cuyahoga Valley. If Blossom Music Center had been put out east of Cleveland at Waite Hill in that area where they wanted it to be, they would have been going that way. They would have never been exposed to it. Does that answer your question?

Karen Grindall [00:31:40] Yes, it does.

Bob Hunker [00:31:40] [Laughs] Too lengthy, perhaps.

Karen Grindall [00:31:41] No. Excellent. What is your favorite part of the park right now?

Bob Hunker [00:31:50] I never thought about that. And probably because, you know, why would I think about it? To me, I see it all, you know, just like a big emerald. I was so impressed wihen someone pointed out to me the Emerald Necklace. And I belonged to the Trails and Riding Club long before the park got involved up at Chagrin. And we would have a two overnighter that we rode the Emerald Necklace from west, east to Squire's Castle. And I just think of it, you know, like a necklace around some dowager or royalty with an even bigger diamond hanging down the bottom of it. That's the way I see this. I do get an enormous amount of satisfaction of driving Peninsula to the south side, up and down Riverview and Akron-Peninsula and Locust. It presents the part I see the most, so maybe that's why it's a favorite of mine. I'm certainly not, you know, Peninsula's great, but it's not the park.

Karen Grindall [00:33:18] Let's talk a little bit about Peninsula. In background readings I found that people really were very intent on wanting to keep that as a community within the park. And I believe you've been involved in making sure that it stays here too, a wonderful place for people to come to. Can you talk a little bit about the town of Peninsula? I think you own a lot of it, don't you?

Bob Hunker [00:33:46] Yeah. Well, there's some others who are a good bit too.

Karen Grindall [00:33:50] Okay.

Bob Hunker [00:33:50] And it all came about... So I got awfully angry with the one Roush son. There's two of 'em that live in New York. The one is a doctor, and he wrote me a very snotty letter, saying, you know, you're a real estate developer. I'm not a real estate developer at all. I... We got involved with all of this... I could see. But it's the way it was and where the railroad station and all that was the dump. There was no railorad station. We moved it down. It was a real dump, I mean, everything was just terrible. And I like things to be attractive, not formal particularly, but my great-great-grandfather was responsible with John Stanton for starting New Stanton, Pennyslvania, which is a stop on the highway, on the turnpike. And I went there, of course, when I was a couple of years old. But then I wouldn't... I would stay with my grandmother and I'd walk up and down and down the hill and the mill. And there were a lot of things that suddenly Peninsula reminded me of New Stanton, which now is a dreadful place, and I could see, you know, a personal involvement and how a marvelous place was destroyed as New Stanton has been destroyed. And my family owned a good bit of it. They owned where the the turnpike entrance is. And so I just thought that Peninsula needed a plan. And I did sketches, which I have, that showed using the area of the east or West Bell Street that goes down to where the railroad station [is]. That's where the old station is. It's on the original foundation. So I did a sketch of that with the development of it and sort of making that the town square, and Peninsula, if I give a lecture, I say it's the first strip development in Ohio or particularly in northern Ohio because there was no place for a square. And the only logical thing, you know, people... You didn't have bulldozers and you moved earth around. So there is the Peninsula and here the people would come. And I have some marvelous letters, one in particular written by a woman when I came in '62, '63, the date on the letter is '63 and she was 92. So that's over 100 years now. And she told about them going down after church, and they would take their picnic baskets and their buggies, and a lot of people didn't have a proper what you called a vehicle other than wagons. Anyway, they put their stuff while they would go down. The kids swam. They fished. They caught fish and fried them over open fires. They had baseball games and so forth. And that was in the Peninsula. And that really essentially was the town square as opposed to like Richfield and Hudson with their proper town square. And it is my dream at this point to see that restored. The septic system, sewage plant, which is down there, it's on land that the foundation owns now and is used by the Winking Lizard. If we ever get water and sewer that'll be gone, and we'll have an open stretch and be able to access the old riverbed. So, without any help from government or anything like that with that plan, and Velma Conger, Charlie Conger's wife, had been at Old Trail School for many years as their office manager, just as superintendent. And when her last child graduated from Old Trail, she worked there because then she got free tuition for the kids. They're living in Peninsula and she came to work for me. So she had a lot of interconnections with all that sort of thing. And I knew the people. She knew who they were. The drafts, they have a little booklet and so forth. So anyway, it was my vision to see it. The first properties were bought just because they came up and nobody wanted to buy them, and it developed in that manner. The G.A.R. Hall I bought for ten dollars. They were burning it down and Lily [Fleder] came and said, Bob, they're gonna burn that place down. And I bought it from the VFW. And then it was a case of pooling the money. And it was my money. It was what I made in my design business which has done this. I've never gotten anything outside of the foundation. It's had gifts now, very nicely this past year. We had a nice funding drive, but otherwise it's my children, you know, I'm single. My sister is single. She lives in San Francisco and neither of us have, although we have huge family of cousins and we're all very close to them, we have no need to leave anything to them. So. If either of us had children and had to educate them, we would have not had the money to put into these projects. And my father was very interested. He sought to them. My father in 1920 went west and I wrote a thing about how I got involved and was initiating into the national parks and became familiar with 'em. I borught a copy if you wanted to have it. But Dad visited, in 1920 and '22, Yellowstone, stayed there for two years, so he wanted to take us. So I was 10 when we went. We camped. It was... You could do anything you wanted. So by the time I was 15, I had been in every

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