Cheney Retirees’ Volunteer Work Takes Them Afar

Three Cheney residents recently completed a 12-week volunteer assignment at the Grey Towers National Historic Landmark in Milford, Pa., the former summer home of Gifford Pinchot.

Pinchot, who died in 1946, was appointed in 1898 by President William McKinley as chief of the Division of Forestry, which in 1905 became the U.S. Forest Service. Pinchot headed the agency until 1910.

A national forest in southwest Washington that includes Mount St. Helens bears his name.

Grey Towers was the Pinchot family’s former summer home, near the Delaware River, about 70 miles northwest of New York City.

The volunteers from Cheney were Dave and Mary Daugharty, and Mary’s sister, Louise Harbison. Their placement was through the non-profit Student Conservation Association’s Resource Assistant Program.

Dave and Mary Daugharty served as interpretive guides at Grey Towers, while Harbison worked as a gardener, helping restore the 105-acre grounds.

Dave Daugharty, 62, retired this year after teaching 30 years in Eastern Washington University’s mathematics department. Mary, 59, retired three years ago after teaching 25 years in Cheney elementary schools.

Harbison, 68, retired after teaching reading and serving as reading curriculum director for the Caldwell (Idaho) School District.

When she retired, Mary saw an article in a retirement newsletter about the nationwide volunteer program and served in Homer, Alaska, tracking whales for the National Wildlife Service.

Her satisfaction with that adventure led the three retirees to apply as a group. The Grey Towers landmark was one site at which they could serve together as well as see the fall foliage in the Northeast.

Originally part of the Yale Forestry School, Grey Towers was donated to the Forest Service and dedicated in 1963 as a national historic monument, conservation center and meeting site.

The Daughartys said Pinchot’s grandfather had fought with Napolean in Europe, then eventually migrated to Milford, Pa., and worked as a merchant. His son, James Pinchot, moved to New York City and helped develop techniques for mass-producing and marketing wallpaper.

James Pinchot, disturbed by deforestation practices in the East, imported trees from throughout the United States and Europe for his 3,700-acre Grey Towers estate, which previously had few trees, the Daughartys said.

James Pinchot also donated $300,000 to Yale to start the country’s first forestry school and sent his son, Gifford, to France to study forestry. In 1908 Gifford became chairman of the National Conservation Commission, which made the first inventory of the country’s natural resources.

He and others persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt in about 1905 to place 191 million acres of land in the public domain, the Daughartys said.

Some 23 forested sites across the country have been named for Pinchot.

A former Pennsylvania governor, he knew every president from Grant to Truman, Mary Daugharty said. One visitor to the monument this fall, she added, was a 92-year-old man who remembered seeing Gifford Pinchot on horseback in one of the century’s early inaugural parades.

The castlelike, historic Grey Towers residence was built in 1887 for $44,000, said the Daughartys, adding that a new slate roof, installed this fall, cost $800,000.

Artifacts in the house include a Renaissance chest hand-carved in 1565 and Pinchot’s hand-tooled, leather-top desk, now valued at $30,000. The volunteers had to wear white gloves when handling any of the antiques, Mary said.

Harbison said she helped the garden curator research the formal gardens, using letters and notes from Gifford Pinchot’s wife, Cornelia. The gardens had not been maintained for many years, Harbison said.

She helped plant 1,335 bulbs, plus mums and other flowers, using strains of plants bred to replicate the originals; no hybrids were allowed.

She also helped clear brick pathways that had been sodded over.

Harbison said growing up on a farm at Clark Fork, Idaho, gave her plenty of experience driving a tractor and running a chain saw, and her skills in those matters impressed the regular crew.

Harbison said Mrs. Pinchot was fond of millstones and had several installed on pedestals as outdoor tables around the grounds. One such table is actually a small pond, she said, adding that at one dinner, a guest, trying to pass a platter full of turkey across the table, spilled the entire platter into the water.

All three look forward to volunteering again in the program in the future.

“The altruistic feeling you get from volunteering is very rewarding,” Mary said. “It was a great adventure.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: VOLUNTEER POSTS OPEN The non-profit Student Conservation Association, based in Charlestown, N.H., provides opportunities for students and other non-student volunteers to work at parks and other public sites through its Resource Assistant (RA) Program. RA’s, who must be 18 years old and out of high school, pay no tuition and receive no salary. Most assignments are for 12 weeks. The association and cooperating agencies, such as the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service, provide travel grants, free housing, a food stipend and, where appropriate, a uniform allowance. Interested volunteers may contact the Daughartys in Cheney or the SCA at (603)-826-4301.