Abstract
Martha Eakin of the Shaker Lakes Nature Center discusses her mother, Jean Eakin. Jean was a major figure in the battle against highway development through the Shaker Lakes in the 1960s. The grassroots campaign, often referred to as "the freeway fight," was started by Jean Eakin and quickly grew to involve numerous citizens, politicians, and community groups. The role played by Cuyahoga County Commissioner Albert Porter, a major proponent of highway development, is also discussed at length. After saving the Shaker Lakes, Jean Eakin was instrumental in the creation of the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, which was designed to educate the public about environmental issues, encourage public use of the park, and provide a buffer against any future "land grabs" by the county. Martha Eakin discusses the founding of the Center as well as some ongoing goals and programming. This interview contains a wealth of information on the Eakin family.
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Interviewee
Eakin, Martha (interviewee)
Interviewer
Bifulco, Anthony (interviewer)
Project
Shaker Lakes Nature Center
Date
6-21-2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
52 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Martha Eakin Interview, 21 June 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 902003.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/207
Transcript
Julie West [00:00:04] Hi, Martha. Thanks for spending some time with me to talk about your memories about the Nature Center. I really appreciate that I mentioned it on the phone, but when we’re done, I will have a release form that I’ll be asking you to sign, just giving your authorization for us to use any of the materials that you shared with us, either on tape or on paper, as a part of our history project. And if you have any questions about that at the end, we can talk about that.
Martha Eakin [00:00:38] Okay.
Mark Tebeau [00:00:40] Now, if I were facilitating, I would ask you, Martha, to move closer to the table.
Julie West [00:00:47] I’d like to begin if you would just describe for me a significant event that happened, a memory that you have regarding an outdoor experience.
Martha Eakin [00:01:02] Well, in my growing up, the outdoors played an important part. My dad was not as keen on spending time outdoors, but my mother insisted that that was not only good for us, but she liked it. So therefore, we were all going to do it. And. And my father was the son of a minister, and he said he’d had enough church to last a lifetime. So my mother said, okay, Sunday mornings we’re going to go out to the country, and we’ll take a picnic or we’ll cook breakfast and we’ll go hiking. So that’s what we did on Sunday mornings. We went out to the country, often to the Holden Arboretum, but to other places. And we cooked out, you know, with a frying pan and potatoes and bacon and eggs and whatever, and. And then we went for a hike. And my mother knew the names of the plants and the birds and the trees, and I wish I paid more attention, but anyhow, she tried to educate us all.
Julie West [00:02:02] And when did you first encounter the Nature Center?
Martha Eakin [00:02:05] Well, when I was growing up, the Nature Center wasn’t there. I grew up just across the street from the Nature Center, two houses down from where the Nature Center now is. And there was just a- There was parkland where we played, as, you know, kids on my street. We played over there all the time. And there came up a point, actually, when I was in high school that there was a proposal to build a freeway through that parkland, because then it wouldn’t be interfering with anything else. Great place to run a road up through the parkland. And I’m not sure that I really. I know this because I don’t know that I would have paid attention at the time. I mean, I was going to school. I mean, I suppose I would have been interested. But my mother took a big interest in this and decided that this was not going to happen. And so she and a couple other friends said, you know, we’re going to get people organized and we’re going to make sure that there isn’t a road. And one way to not have a road would be to have an area designated as parkland. And somebody said, you know, what if there was a, environmental education wasn’t really a thing then, but it was becoming an interest. I mean, there had been Rachel Carson and, you know, various things like that. And so the Nature Center partly was established so that there couldn’t ever be a road through the park because there would be this important establishment that would both train, train, not train or educate young people, old people, members of the community, how to be good earth stewards.
Julie West [00:04:02] You said your mother decided that she was going to organize a couple people. What exactly happened?
Martha Eakin [00:04:09] Well, it was way more elaborate than organizing a couple people. But my mother was not the sort of person you’d think of as belonging to garden clubs or groups like that. But she did belong to a garden club, and she did belong to a book club. And I think she’d been a social worker. And then at a certain point, I think my dad thought it was what you should do is your wife should stay home and take care of the kids, because that would make him a good provider. So my mom was home. I’m not sure she totally liked being home, but she and her couple friends said, these are the groups we have to call on church groups, garden, any group, not just individuals we know, but who can we look to so that we are doing what we would now call a network. You know, I’m going to call Julie and she, you know, belongs to the Rotary Club, so she has those friends. And we’re going to mobilize people and we’re going to go and tell people that this is serious, this isn’t just a consideration. In Columbus, there’s a roadway designed, you know, running through our parkland. And if we want to prevent this, we have to get out in big numbers. And at first when they talked to people, people just said, yeah, you know, you can’t. If Columbus has planned a road, nothing you can do about it. But she and Betty Miller and Mary Elizabeth Croxton, they said, no, no, we’re not going to have this happen. And they printed up flyers and they went door to door. I mean, it was, you know, an elaborate. They had meetings and Mom was gone nightly. She wasn’t home for dinner. She was gone meeting with people all the time. And they decided they were going to have a big public meeting at what’s now a middle school at Byron Junior High School. And they leafleted the whole community, Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights. And over 2,000 people showed up at this meeting on a rainy night. And it was just. It was unbelievable because they never expected that. That many people would come out. And then some of the naysayers said, whoa, looks like you really do have something happening here. I would have to go back and review. I have lots of details about this. I actually wrote my graduate thesis on this project, so I got all these papers from my mom. So I’m sure I have all the documents somewhere, because I’m not good at throwing things away. I save everything. But it would take me time to think of all the specific details. But a lot of it, I actually have the paperwork of how they drew attention. But it was a fairly quick process of gathering people together, because when they learned that this was proposed, it wasn’t like they’re now talking about the Inner Belt Plan. But they started talking about it five years ago, and it isn’t going to break ground for four more years. It was on the books, and it was supposed to happen. And Albert Porter had pictures of beautiful cloverleafs, one of which was going to be practically where the Nature Center is right now. And my mom used to joke about how she was going to have a diner if this went through. She said, I’m not moving. I’m going to have a diner, and people will get off the thruway and they’ll eat at Jean’s.
Julie West [00:07:30] So at what point did you actually get involved with the Nature Center?
Martha Eakin [00:07:35] Well, the Nature Center got going right about the time I was going off to college. So, you know, I heard about it, and I heard about, you know, the first naturalists. And my mom was critical of the first building because she said it looked like somebody’s home in the woods. She said it was as if somebody said, oh, I have an opportunity and money to build this really great suburban house in the woods. But it didn’t strike her as being designed appropriately for an education center. And in fact, when they built the new one, I think they tried to correct some of the problems. I mean, access from a classroom to the out of doors, not walking down from the living room to the back door to go out to the outdoors. I mean, it was. She just laughed because she said, people have different ideas about things, and some people give money and want to have their name on something, and other people are more concerned with. She said, I didn’t want to build too much because I wanted to keep it as woodsy or as much natural as possible. So you want to do enough to keep progress, a negative kind of progress from coming in, but you also don’t want to be the source of that negative progress yourself. I remember Mom being pretty shocked when they were going to build the boardwalk first in the marsh. She was like, oh, my goodness. But in fact, she ultimately said, hey, here I am. I’m an old lady and I’m using the boardwalk myself, so I’m glad it’s here. But at first that was, you know, I mean, it changed what the marsh looked like when that went in.
Julie West [00:09:13] Did you ever take any classes at the Nature Center?
Martha Eakin [00:09:16] No, I never took any classes at-
Julie West [00:09:18] After the building was built. Were you ever involved with any programs or anything over there?
Martha Eakin [00:09:26] Not when I was- My husband, before he was my husband, lived- While I was in graduate school, he lived with my parents, and he helped lay out the Stearns Trail with my mom. They worked on that project together. I used to just hear from my mother reports about what different naturalists were doing. I mean, there were some that became quite close friends of hers. So I got all the reports on bird walks and whatever, and when I was home, I might go on a bird walk with my mother. But I don’t think I really became particularly involved with the Nature Center until I moved back, because I didn’t live in Cleveland for a lot of my adult life. And then when I moved back, it was again right at the end of the street. And I knew so many positive things. I mean, you know, when my mother was not well, she was saying, now, remember, I don’t want flowers. I want people to give money to the Nature Center. So, I mean, the Nature Center was a big focus in our lives. There was a point when she was so irritated with something that was happening, and I wish I could remember what was. When she was saying, I told you once we should give everything to the Nature Center, but I don’t think so anymore. But then that ultimately changed back again, so. So whatever it was that she was not pleased with changed, and she ultimately. And so I got involved in removing a log jam that was in the marsh. I don’t know. Is that the kind of thing you’re thinking of, that sort of project?
Julie West [00:11:02] Sure. Just what your current connections are within the Nature Center. [crosstalk]
Martha Eakin [00:11:04] Current connections are- I like working outdoors. So, I mean, any project that, like helping with the plant sale, anything that requires help that comes by spending time outdoors, I would rather do that than spend time inside. Although if somebody said, gee, come help us go through old papers, I like history. And that’s why I volunteered to work on the history project, because I think the history of things is fascinating. And I can see from trying to collect our family history and helping a little bit on that project that things disappear. And you think, oh, darn, why didn’t we ask Grandma about that? But Grandma’s gone before you remember that. You should have asked the various things. And so it’s intriguing to me that we’re looking now and identifying people who may not. Well, we know they’re not going to be here forever, but looking right now and saying, well, before they move south or north or wherever they’re going to go, let’s sit them down and try to find out the stories that they can tell us. So interested in that.
Julie West [00:12:05] You mentioned that in your childhood, it was really parklands. The building wasn’t there yet. What was it like then when it was parklands?
Martha Eakin [00:12:13] There were still- When I was really little, there were still horses at the Armory, which was behind the Cleveland Skating Club. So people- Actually, I don’t know if they were their horses or you rented the horses, but you- I thought horses were really cool. So I thought it was pretty neat that you could go down. I was allowed to go to the corner. I couldn’t cross the street by myself, but I could go stand on the corner and you would see people, you know, cantering or trotting past on horses. That was pretty neat. That went away soon after. I mean, that must be a pretty early memory. I bet I was just two or three, I don’t think. I think the horses all moved out soon after that.
Julie West [00:12:49] Can you give me an idea of what year that was?
Martha Eakin [00:12:52] Oh, I was born in 1948, so it would have been like 1950, maybe.
Julie West [00:13:00] Other early memories of at the parkland?
Martha Eakin [00:13:02] The Canoe Club was- There was a building. I mean, do I remember seeing people? I mean, there’s more than there is now in terms of, you know, there’s just foundation left where the Canoe Club was. But do I remember seeing people in boats? I don’t think so. The lake was deeper than it is now. A lot. A lot. I mean, my impression is it was a lot deeper. When you looked at it, you couldn’t see little. Now you look and you can see areas where you can. Like a limb has fallen, but it’s not really very deep into- You know, it’s like sitting on a sandbar or a dirt bar, you know, I mean, partly when you’re little, you think things are bigger, you know, so maybe I thought it was deeper, but I have a sense that it really was deeper than it is now. The bridge was different. The bridge that runs. I’m not sure what that road is that goes down. Not the one that you can’t drive through anymore. At the one end where you can’t drive through. You could drive through then. That was Lovers Lane. It still is. The end by Coventry, the end by Coventry you could drive through. And the near end. The bridge was different. It was a more scenic. It was a more old-fashioned type. This looks more like any bridge on an interstate road. And it was, you know, didn’t have those aluminum guardrails and stuff. I mean, it was, you know, the stuff that has the purple berries. I’m not sure what that’s called. It’s sort of purple, those purple blueberries. There’s a lot of it near the bridge now. There didn’t used to be so much of that. There was grapevine, but there wasn’t that around. I don’t know. You have to ask me. I always. I forget what I’m talking about. So you have to remind me what I’m supposed to be talking about.
Julie West [00:15:10] Having been, you know, involved in the way you described as a child and then coming back much later as an adult, are there some other differences that stand out for you in terms of?
Martha Eakin [00:15:25] One of the differences that I think is a real positive difference, although it was fun sledding, is that we used to sled down the hill where there’s North Park. The road that comes between the North Park goes off like this South Park goes down to the Nature Center driveway that. Now that’s all grown up with trees. That was. We sledded there and you could actually, if you were good, you could sled down and go out over the pipe that drains into the marsh. You know, if you aimed it just right and it was frozen, you could sort of go out over that and then roll off the side of that and go out across the. As a little boy across the street managed to do that and go through the ice and, you know, it was dramatic. I mean, he was fine, but. But I think it’s. That’s all filled with trees now, which is pretty amazing. And I can remember that it was a big debate how much was pruned because there were certain people that were nervous about underbrush and said that, you know, like it was dangerous to have underbrush because people could be lurking in the underbrush. Negative, bad, you know, you could be attacked by someone who would be in the underbrush. So although growing up, I didn’t think about that. But I can remember that that was an issue even before the freeway. How much pruning went on over there because the city of Cleveland and Shaker, the land belonged to Cleveland in it, but somehow there was. What government was in charge wasn’t totally clear. So who mowed the grass was an issue. And my mother, being interested in birds and wildflowers and whatever, wished that not so much would get mowed. So that even before the Nature Center existed, she had tried to work with the town of Shaker and the city of Cleveland about mowing less and leaving more things to grow up. And that the area. I’m not good on directions north, south, to the west. If the marsh is here and then there’s the lake and then there’s the waterfall and that little stone bridge that’s down in there. Some Shaker ruins down in there, that was not all that has some fill in there. That fill wasn’t there when I was growing up to begin with, you could walk in and there were more things to see. Which always sort of amazes me that in my lifetime, when we should know better about saving old things, even then we didn’t. I mean, we filled in there when we should have known better.
Julie West [00:17:58] And this is too, between Coventry? [crosstalk]
Martha Eakin [00:18:01] Between Coventry and that- Whatever that roads- Right. Yeah. If you walk in there, there’s a sort of a big- There’s a mound. That wasn’t- It wasn’t always that mound in there. Things have gotten in the- Not that distant. I mean, like within the last year, I’ve discussed that with somebody because somebody was saying, oh, you know, do you remember what. And I said, oh, well, there were stone benches in there. And I think. Didn’t some Boy Scouts work on digging out some of that? But that the city was always having dirt from projects, you know, and would go like MLK there, you know, I mean, it was like mother said, you had to be actively on the watch because suddenly you’d look and somebody with a dump truck would just be backing in. And, you know, you’d say, what are you doing? And they’d say, well, lady, I’m dumping dirt. You know, what do you think I’m doing? And that happened. So that’s different than when I was real little.
Julie West [00:18:58] Do you have any. Anything that comes to mind in terms of a disappointment or a challenge, something related to the Nature Center that you’re disappointed about?
Martha Eakin [00:19:20] I’m not sure that there’s anything in, you know, I mean, a recent thing that I wish that they wouldn’t do is when things- This has to do with the log jam. In fact, I noticed today when trees fall, people seem to be tempted to clear away more brush than I would clear away. I’d clear away just enough to allow people to pass on the trails that they always passed on. But I wouldn’t say, oh, something’s fallen. I’m going to clean it up and remove it. And that seems to be hard to stop. People like to clean up. But then again, when you’re running an organization, you have a lot of volunteer help. Volunteers often come and they say, what would you like me to do? I’m willing to do anything. But they really have something they want to do. And it’s sometimes hard to, you know, give too many orders or keep volunteers under control. Volunteers have minds of their own.
Julie West [00:20:16] And do you have a particular experience or with the Nature Center that you would. Kind of stands out for you. Is this like a very significant or high event for you?
Martha Eakin [00:20:29] Well, I just, I think, you know, in associated- I mean, I was very close to my mom. I thought she was a really neat person. And seeing the Nature Center there and being involved there now myself, I mean, I just know that’s something. I don’t have visions of my mom floating around looking at me, but I know it’s something that she would be real pleased about, that in fact, it’s still there and all sorts of good work is happening and that, you know, kids are still coming through. We have great photographs of Mom because she used to take kids on walks. She wasn’t a naturalist, but she. I mean, at the Nature Center, she didn’t work as a naturalist, but she taught courses at the Holden Arboretum. And she did also take school groups around sometimes. And because I have. Thank you. I have. You know how kids go back and the teacher says, okay, now we’re going to write class to the lady that took us around and tell her that we had a good time. So I- Pictures that kids drew and little notes. And I have a notebook of those that I saved that I thought that was. I found that after Mom died. And I thought, oh, we can’t throw these away. These are fun, you know, and, you know, kids saying, you know, Dear, you know, Mrs. E, I really like the big woods. And a lot of kids like the tree with that hollow in it, which I think is still. People still talk about that’s not by the marsh, but not on the north park side, but the other side between.
Julie West [00:21:54] Is that the Friendship Tree?
Martha Eakin [00:21:56] Maybe you guys call it the Friendship Tree, but there’s a- You can sort of it’s hollow enough that you can walk. Little people can walk in there and it’s big enough around that the kids could, you know, hold hands around it. And you know, Mom said they were always impressed that they could. So I think of those things and how. I mean she was. It was very satisfying and rewarding to her to be involved there. So I mean, I have a good feeling about it because it was nice for her and it’s nice that it’s going on.
Julie West [00:22:24] When your mother was taking these groups of children around, did you ever go with her? To the walks?
Martha Eakin [00:22:31] No. I think mostly it happened when I wasn’t around, but I heard about it and I’ve seen the letters and I’ve seen. There are some fun photographs too. Her standing in the middle of a group of little kids or like when she was banding birds. We have some with her holding a little bird and a big school group around.
Julie West [00:22:54] Can you think, is there anything in terms of your memories or experiences with the Nature Center that I haven’t asked you about that you’d like to share?
Martha Eakin [00:23:05] I’m sure if I thought about it I could come up with something, but not off the top of my head, I don’t think. I mean there’s always debates about being a place that wants to teach about preserving the environment, but is having to make differences once it’s there, there are alterations. The fact that that are there and there’s a parking lot and you know, for instance, when I talked about clearing out the log jam partly there’s those happen because we’re there and we’re involved. And so there’s always those questions about once you’ve monkeyed with something, you have to keep monkeying and what kind of monkeying is acceptable and positive and what you know, some people are concerned, you know, have different levels of comfort with alterations. But those are things that just need to continue to be debated so people realize there’s more than one side, I guess.
Julie West [00:24:12] You mentioned a couple people, Betty Miller and someone.
Martha Eakin [00:24:17] Mary Elizabeth Croxton.
Julie West [00:24:19] Are there other people that you think we should interview that would. That you know, are still alive that were involved back in the early days of the formation?
Martha Eakin [00:24:33] I think Betsy Walker might have some. She wasn’t able to be. Her husband was ill so she couldn’t be as day to day active. But she was friends with these people. She was a good friend of my mom’s. And so she I think knows a lot about the story. Even though she and Kay Fuller is definitely live and kicking and full of information, you know, and she was involved. I would think that maybe. I can’t think what her first name is. Bryan? Sally Bryan, maybe? She was. She was. My guess is that she was involved and she’s still around somewhere. Her daughter, as my age was in, you know, my. I grew up with her and was in Girl Scouts with her daughter, whatever. But I think she was involved with my mom. And those people would probably. I’m sure Betsy Walker would have ideas of other people that you could talk to and she would love to talk about it.
Julie West [00:25:39] And certainly if, you know, after we’re done with the interview, if you have any, you know, more names come to mind, but you’d like to hear if you could let us know and certainly if you have some other memories that.
Martha Eakin [00:25:53] Well, I have notebooks full of papers and all this stuff, so we should probably go through it and see. In fact, I think at one point I thought I asked Nancy Smith if I could give it to the Nature Center. And she said, oh, you know, we don’t have room for, you know, we have this space is a problem and how we’re trying to catalog what we do have. And she knew I wasn’t going to throw anything away, but she said we have to figure out how we’re going to categorize and keep the stuff that we have. So I probably have certain things that would be of interest. And I know that I gave her a copy already of the letter from the lawyer who described the meeting at the junior high school where just hundreds more people showed up than they expected. So that they had to have the meeting with the doors open and they had to move from this auditorium to that auditorium, and people just kept coming. And he said it was such a terrible night that we were sort of thinking, oh, well, it’s a bad. It’s like on voting day, if it’s pouring rain, you think, oh, well, not so many people will vote. But in fact, you know, the people did care and they showed up and that it’s a very fun letter because he was a good letter writer and it’s a very graphic description of what the meeting was like.
Julie West [00:27:11] Justin, do you have any questions you want to ask?
Justin Hons [00:27:14] We’re going to go ahead and-
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