Greetings family and friends!   Today's rambling recalls a visit to Yosemite and crossing paths with an iconic author and historian...........Bill

Memorable Characters

SHIRLEY SARGENT - AUTHOR, YOSEMITE  HISTORIAN

On a warm summer evening in Yosemite we made our way from our campsite in Upper River Campground to the Visitor Center Theatre in Yosemite Village for the highly anticipated one person program.  Daughter of a surveyor and highway engineer, Shirley Sargent had the opportunity to travel with her father to work assignments at several national parks and forests including the summer of 1936 spent in a construction camp in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows. While he was busy working on the reconstruction of the historic Tioga Road, the adventurist  nine year old self proclaimed “tom boy”  explored the meadow, climbed nearby Lembert Dome and towering Mt. Dana, and waded in the upper reaches of the Tuolumne River.

Diagnosed with dystorum musculorum deformans and confined to a wheel chair at age 14 didn’t diminish  Shirley’s love for Muir’s Sierra Nevada “ Range of Light”, or end family visits to Yosemite National Park. Between summers in Yosemite she graduated from from Pasadena City College, operated a Nursery School, began writing fictional books,and built a modest summer cabin just outside of her beloved National Park. Encouraged by conversations with neighbor and “old timer”  Elizabeth Meyer she gained an interest into the regions human history and  built a permanent home in nearby Foresta she named Flying Spur and in 1975 self published her first book, Wawona’s Yesterdays, under the imprint of Flying Spur Press.

We spent the memorable evening with Shirley Sargent in the Yosemite Visitor Center’s small theatre in the early 1980’s for her unforgettable one person presentation about growing up in Yosemite, researching the regions human history and writing about the parks native people, pioneers, inn keepers, and historical buildings. 

Tragically the 1990 Yosemite A-Rock Fire consumed the entire village of Foresta, Shirley’s beloved Flying Spur was reduced to ashes, her complete collection of priceless historical photos and documents were destroyed, and confined to a wheel chair her life was threatened while escaping the fast moving flames. Shirley Sargent, Yosemite Historian and author of eighteen best selling titles was never able to return to her beloved Flying Spur and passed in 2004 at the age of 77.  -Bill

Circa 1920’s postcard of the Sentinel Hotel in Yosemite Valley described in Shirley Sargent’s 1975 publication “Yosemite & It’s Innkeepers”