Gretchen has so many cast iron pots and pans that they’re hard to find in drawers and cabinets, so we’ve taken to hanging them on walls.
![[Cast iron on the wall and behind the wood stove]](http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/pictures/2023-12-17--cast-iron-wall/many.jpg)
Cast iron on the wall and behind the wood stove
Here she is admiring the result:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk2OxkA4UvzMy9YWoMkxRsDgmVDgoX6v&si=jIqUJQekM7Z6bKKp Continue reading
Elsie Quarterman is 102 years old today.
She was born in Valdosta in 1910,
played basketball for Hahira High School,
graduated from Valdosta High School,
got a B.A. from Valdosta State College,
and taught English in Morven, Naylor, Columbus,
Lake Park, and Lyons, Georgia.
Dr. Elsie Quarterman got a Masters and a Ph.D. from Duke University in
in botany and plant ecology.
While studying for her Ph.D., she was a professor at Vanderbilt University
in Nashville, Tennessee, where she
was one of the first women full professors and was the first
woman department chair (Biology).
She specialized in the cedar glades of central Tennessee,
including
one now named after her by the state.
There is an annual
wildflower festival
named after her.
She rediscovered the cedar glade Tennessee coneflower, Echinacea tennesseensis,
which previously was thought to be extinct,
but has
since been taken off the endangered species list,
partly due to her work.
Her wikipedia page
has more information about her work and her many honors.
Aunt Elsie still lives in her own house in Nashville, connected to her nephew
Patrick’s house, where Patrick and his wife Ann live and take care of her.
Here is world traveller Elsie in 2006 leading a family group on the Isle of Skye in Scotland:
Patrick, Gretchen, Elsie, Ann:
Patrick, Gretchen, Elsie, Ann
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Nashville, Tennessee, 2 July 2012.
Elsie, Patrick, Ann:
Dr. Elsie Quarterman pioneered the ecology of cedar glades.
Yesterday she attended the annual festival named in her honor, the
Elsie Quarterman Cedar Glade Wildflower Festival
at Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Lebanon, Tennessee.
Aunt Elsie is 100 years and five months old, and isn’t getting around as fast as she once did,
so she met with her students and grand-students at a local
restaurant. Only a few of them are pictured here:
Kim Cleary Sadler,
Assistant Professor of Biology at Middle Tennessee State University
and co-Director of the
Center for Cedar Glade Studies.
(Student of
Thomas “Tom” Ellsworth Hemmerly, who was teaching and couldn’t come.)
Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Professor Emerita of Plant Ecology, Vanderbilt University
Carol C. Baskin, Professor of Biology, University of Kentucky
There were classes, botany walks, owl hoots, and musicians.
Here’s the schedule.
It was sunny this year,
unlike last year’s great flood.
Next year, you should come!
Get out of town, take a walk in the glades.
Elsie got a guided tour, with
Tennessee State Naturalist Emeritus Mack Pritchard
and his successor Randy Hedgepath.
Here they are with Elsie’s nephew Patrick Quarterman,
while Gretchen Quarterman photographs a glade.
Here
State Naturalist Randy Hedgepath
consults with Dr. Quarterman about identification of a cedar glade plant.
Elsie got out of the car to look at this one with Randy and Ann Quarterman:
Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Vanderbilt Professor of Plant Ecology Emerita,
with students and some grand-students:
This is Elsie’s 100th year: