Dormon, Carrie (1888–1971)

American ecological pioneer whose work in the emerging discipline of ecology was highly regarded by professionals in archaeology, botany, forestry and ornithology. Name variations: Caroline Dormon. Born Caroline Coroneos Dormon at Briarwood estate, Louisiana, on July 19, 1888; died in Saline, Louisiana, on November 21, 1971; daughter of James L. Dormon and Caroline (Trotti) Dormon; sister of Virginia Dormon; never married.

Carrie Dormon, who lived to be 83, was a highly regarded botanist and ornithologist and author of six books, besides being a bona fide Southern eccentric. Regarded by many in the field as the foremost authority on wild flowers in the southern United States, in many ways she herself remained untamed and only lightly touched by society's conventions. A friend described her as:

tall and sinewy—all whipcord and piano wire—with fresh earth on her hands and apron. There would be a cocklebur or two caught on the hem of her skirt, and bits of leaves and pine needles or wisps of cobwebs and cocoons stuck to her shoulders. Her complexion was fair. Her hair—braided into a crown or pulled back severely into a bun—was the color of straw. When you were closer you could see that her eyes were the green of chlorophyll and had a quickness about them, like the eyes of a squirrel, conditioned to detect the barest flicker of movement.

Born Caroline Coroneos Dormon on July 19, 1888, at Briarwood, the Dormon family home in Natchitoches Parish, Carrie was the sixth child and second daughter of a prosperous Louisiana family. Her beloved "papa" was not only a lawyer but an amateur naturalist as well. Carrie was his favorite child, and James L. Dormon rarely went anywhere without her. Not only did she look forward to riding next to him in his buggy, she often accompanied him on his quail hunts, during which he would give her detailed and fascinating nature lessons. An extremely precocious child, Carrie Dormon could write at the age of three and would be a voracious reader throughout her entire life. From her mother Caroline Trotti Dormon , who was an amateur poet and a published author, Carrie learned to appreciate the beauty and infinite nuances of written language. On her own, and starting at an early age, Carrie began to explore and observe the natural world, both in the 135 acres of her family's Briarwood estate and in the yard of the family home in Arcadia, Louisiana. At age five, she already began to detect the immense variety of wildflowers around her home, discovering several clumps of white bluets. The same year, she began to cultivate a small wild garden in a shady corner of her home in Arcadia.

Very likely the most independent of the "wild" Dormon children, Carrie's lack of interest in social conventions concerned her father, and he determined to place her on something resembling a more traditional path of life. At age 16, she was sent off to Judson College, a Baptist girls' school in Marion, Alabama. Homesick and miserable during her first year, Dormon found things better the next year when she discovered that her way with words could win her friends. Even more important was the fact that one of her teachers discovered her great talent for identifying birds by their calls. Soon, she was teaching birdcalls to both her fellow students and some of her teachers. Carrie's father was pleased that she was being socialized, but society's norms seemed empty to Carrie and much of what she learned at Judson remained a veneer. Later, she noted, "I still belonged to the wild." Her happiest hours during these years were spent in the nearby woods of Grey's Hollow, where she discovered for the first time such priceless treasures as yellow violets, bloodroot, and hepatica.

Graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1907 in literature and art, her joy was tempered that year by the death of her mother. Starting in 1908, Carrie began to teach first grade in nearby Bienville Parish. Happiness ended for her in 1909 with the death of her beloved father. She wrote, "Papa possessed magic" and with his passing some of the magic vanished from her life. Three months later, the Dormon family home in Arcadia,

with its large library, burned to the ground. But Briarwood remained, and Carrie and her sister Virginia Dormon , who had also become a teacher, would spend their summers there. In 1918, the two sisters moved to Briarwood on a permanent basis, living in a log home built from trees growing on the estate grounds. That same year, Carrie became a conservation advocate, pleading to the Southern Forestry Congress meeting in New Orleans for the preservation of Louisiana's long-leaf pine virgin forests. Her eloquence played a significant role in her being appointed state chair of conservation for the Louisiana Federation of Women's Clubs. Dormon yearned to be a forester, but was told that this was clearly not "women's work" and that she should be content to remain a teacher.

In 1919, illness prompted Carrie Dormon to ask the school superintendent to transfer her to a job in the pine woods. Fortunately a job was available, and she was sent to the forested sand hills of Kisatchie in Natchitoches Parish, which could only be reached in those days via rough dirt roads. She regarded the majestic long-leaf pine forests of the area as a "heaven" in which the "great pines came right to the water's edge on those lovely clear creeks, with only an occasional magnolia and dainty wild azalea and ferns." There the idea was born—this unspoiled beauty must be preserved for future generations to enjoy. Determined that nothing would stop her from achieving the preservation of this area, Dormon gave lectures and wrote newspaper articles, calling for the preservation of a virgin tract of the Kisatchie, called Odom's Falls. Her second goal was to persuade the Federal government to buy up cutover areas for a national forest. Despite the fact that Dormon was a woman, the commissioner of the Louisiana Department of Conservation, M.L. Alexander, took notice.

In September 1921, Alexander hired Dormon to carry out his department's public relations. Rising to the challenge, she lectured throughout the state and also prepared bulletins and posters making a powerful case for the economic as well as aesthetic value of trees to the state. In 1922, Dormon began working with W.W. Ashe, a land acquisitions official of the U.S. Forest Service. She made a strong impression on Ashe, who learned vast amounts from her on their many trips into the Kisatchie. The respect of Ashe for Dormon found concrete form when he named a new variety of hawthorn tree that she had discovered for her, Craetaegus aestivales dormonae. Carrie and her sister Virginia continued the crusade to preserve the Kisatchie, often taking other interested individuals into the area. Once during the years-long struggle, a frustrated Carrie Dormon was able to get her lawyer brother to draft an act to purchase the land. Then she lobbied with powerful state senators to see that it actually became law.

Although some of the land was in fact cut down by commercial interests and she would mourn over "[t]his beautiful forest lost to posterity," in June 1930 the Federal government finally purchased 75,589 acres of cutover land for a national forest, which was promptly named the Kisatchie National Forest. That same year, Dormon became one of the first three women to be elected an associate member of the Society of American Foresters. Politically always a liberal, she resigned in disgust when Huey Long was elected governor. If shunned in her own state during these years, in 1935 she was appointed as the only female member of the De Soto Commission established by the U.S. Congress.

But it was Dormon's work in the pine forests and flower fields that kept her busy, and in 1934 she was finally persuaded to put her vast knowledge to paper and publish her first book, Wild Flowers of Louisiana. Written for amateurs like herself, it reflected her deep love of nature and was full of admonitions regarding whether or not to pick plants "freely," "sparingly," or "never." In 1941, Dormon received official recognition for her conservation efforts when she was appointed beautification consultant for the Louisiana Highway Department.

Carrie Dormon's health was frail during the last 15 years of her life. The death of her sister Virginia was also a blow, but neither fact could thwart her determination to continue to study nature and be its champion. Despite pain from angina and a crippled hip, she continued to observe birds and squirrels from her living room window. Books now flowed from her pen, including the 1958 volume Flowers Native to the Deep South, a book whose scope was astonishing in that it covered the entire deep South except for subtropical Florida. Of particular concern to Dormon was her hope that growing knowledge would help people to protect and preserve the native wildflowers of the region. In 1965, she published Natives Preferred, a chatty volume for those "who love the informality of Nature, with softly rounded masses of foliage, and flowers scattered freely by her hand." Probably her most popular book, Natives Preferred is also rich in autobiographical details.

Two more books appeared at the end of Dormon's life. In 1967, she published Southern Indian Boy, based on her lifelong interest in the Native Americans of Louisiana. From the start of her nature studies, she had discovered and mapped Indian mounds and befriended the survivors of five distinct Indian tribes in the state, gathering their lore and legends. She gave much of her data to the Smithsonian Institution's John R. Swanton, who praised her work highly.

Bird Talk, published in 1969, was Dormon's last book. An anthology of articles she published over the years in the Sunday magazine of the Shreveport Times, these were deeply felt personal encounters with chickadees, finches, wrens and other wild birds she had observed and admired over the decades. Despite her semi-invalid status at this stage of her life, Dormon continued to observe birds, even making new discoveries. On April 13, 1969, she noted six Cassin's finches feeding on the flat rocks outside her window; they had never before been reported in Louisiana.

Carrie Dormon's last years were rich in honors. In 1960, the Garden Club of America awarded her its Eloise Paine Luquer Medal for achievement in botany. In 1965, Louisiana State University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Science degree. The following year, the American Horticultural Society recognized Briarwood as "a sanctuary for the flora of the south." A practical measure for the preservation of Briar-wood for future generations came into being with the creation of the Caroline Dormon Foundation. A remarkable life dedicated to the plants and animals of the forest ended with the death of Carrie Dormon on November 21, 1971.

sources:

Bonta, Marcia Myers. Women in the Field: America's Pioneering Women Naturalists. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991.

——, ed. American Women Afield: Writings by Pioneering Women Naturalists. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995.

Crittenden, Bob. "Miss Caroline's Dream Became Louisiana's National Forest," in Forests and People. Vol. 30, 1980, pp. 24–29.

Johnson, Fran Holman. The Gift of the Wild Things: The Life of Caroline Dormon. Lafayette, LA: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1990.

Rawson, Donald M. "Caroline Dormon: A Renaissance Spirit of Twentieth-Century Louisiana," in Louisiana History. Vol. 24, 1983, pp. 121–139.

Snell, David. "The green world of Carrie Dormon," in Smithsonian. Vol. 2, no. 11. February 1972, pp. 28–33.

Stringfellow, Emma L. "Caroline Dormon and Her Accomplishments" (manuscript, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, 1961).

Trissler, Alicia. "Caroline Dormon and Louisiana Archaeology of the 1930s" (M.A. Thesis, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, 1994).

John Haag , Associate Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia