John Eliot Allen

I’ll make a copy for you. I pulled that out of the file, but I wasn’t sure if you’d seen it or not, there are also some transmittal letters that are interesting.

You stayed in contact with people like Applegate and some of the other… 

No, I didn’t. I never saw Elmer again after that summer down there. I don’t know what happened to him. I really don’t. He was a sweet guy; we were very fond of him.

I know he published, finally, his book on plants in ’49. And we had one letter in the file where he was protesting against the Ribes eradication because the Crater Lake current was at risk and there wasn’t much proof that the rust was using Crater Lake plant as a host. 

Well, he was a good ecologist.

Were there other people interested in botany at the time? 

Well, Coopey was a biologist.

So, he would have been more in fauna?  

Yeah, I got the bird and mammal identifications from him, I think.

Did you see any of the people…  

Coopey came to Portland and taught at Portland State for several years before he retired. He was a little older than I am.

Were some of the people from the Washington or Berkeley offices coming through at the times?  

I really don’t remember any real visitors except, of course, our friend with the motorcycle, Dave Griggs. He made a mark on all of us! But, visiting firemen, they’d buzz in and buzz out, you know and we’d never get a chance to talk with them very much.

So, you didn’t visit with Harold Bryant or Washington Office people? 

No. Of course we all got to meet the big man…Merriam. But, really, I don’t remember any off the others.