A bench inscribed simply “Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Plant Ecologist” sits
under cedar trees in the herb garden at Cheekwood Botanical Garden;
appropriately for a scientist whose specialty was cedar glades.
She was involved with Cheekwood for many years, and was its Acting Director from 1967 to 1968.
She helped establish the herb garden in which the bench sits.
Continue reading
2011 inductee, Tennessee Botanists Hall of Fame,
Elsie Quarterman,
Elsie Quarterman was born in 1910 in Georgia. She completed her
undergraduate work at Georgia State Woman’s College in 1932.
Post-graduate studies were done at Duke Univ. where she obtained her
Ph.D. in 1949 under Henry J. Osting. She accepted a faculty position
at Vanderbilt Univ. and later became the University’s first female
department chair, heading the Biology Department in 1964.Dr. Quarterman is best known for her work on the ecology and plant
communities of the cedar glades of the Central Basin. She is widely
recognized for the re-discovery of the Tennessee Coneflower
(Echinacea tennesseensis) in 1969, a plant once thought to be
extinct and subsequently the first plant endemic to Tennessee to be
protected by the Endangered Species Act. She has received many
honors including our very own TNPS Conservation Award. The Elsie
Quarterman Cedar Glade State Natural Area was named in her honor in
1998.
-jsq
Thanks to Kim Sadler for sending this.
Brian Bowen, for Tennessee Conservationist Magazine, Sep-Oct 2014,
Remembering Dr. Elsie Quarterman, Champion of the Cedar Glades and Natural Areas,
Dr. Quarterman was a longtime member of the Natural Areas Association, the professional organization representing the interests of natural area professionals in the US. She received the NAA George Fell Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 at the 35th Annual Natural Areas Conference in Nashville. In receiving the award, she humbly said that there “is no greater honor than to be recognized by my peers.” Her most significant legacy will be the thousands of acres of natural areas she helped to protect in Tennessee including the cedar glades and the once endangered Tennessee Coneflower.(Tennessee Natural Areas Program Administrator Brian Bowen works in
the Department of Environment and Conservation in Nashville.)
There’s much more in the article.
-jsq
Saying what many students think: “Students of all ages are thankful
that her appreciation of the plant kingdom and the world around her
touched them and made their lives.”
Jonathan Ertelt, Vanderbilt Magazine, Summer 2014 issue,
Quarterman Was More Than a Biology Professor and Ecologist, Continue reading
Here’s
a video about Elsie,
A Crusader for Conservation,
19 September 2014,
by Tennessee’s Wild Side, “The Emmy Award winning show produced through the generosity of the Jackson
Foundation, Tennessee State Parks, and the Tennessee Wildlife Federation.”
Lots of good pictures, some video snippets of Elsie, and some narration by her nephew Patrick and by Biologist Tom Hemmerly, who reminds us of Elsie’s work at Radner Lake, in addition to her cedar glades work.
Ranger Buddy Ingram explains her biggest contribution may have been
in getting numerous different segments of society to cooperate
in saving whole ecologies.
Botanist Kim Sadler and others explain how inspiring all that is to generations
of students.
As Elsie said in 2006:
The general public needs to know what’s around them.
They need to be learning that there’s a world that is not paved.
There are lots of things that have life and function in the whole scheme,
people as well as plants and animals.
Not just dogs you’ve got on a leash, but animals that live out there,
are part of the whole ecosystem.
Posted with permission. I added the links. -jsq
Remembering Elsie Quarterman
by Paul Somers, Ph.D.
Retired State Botanist, Massachusetts Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program
and former botanist, Tennessee Natural Heritage Program
Not wanting to miss a chance to pay tribute to my friend, the 103+
year old Dr. Elsie Quarterman, I’m sitting down to reflect on my
remembrances of this wonderful woman who befriended me and many
other botanical and conservation colleagues. It was the summer of
1976 when I moved to Nashville to join the young staff of the
Tennessee Heritage Program as its first botanist. The program, now
well established with the State Department of Environment and
Conservation, benefited greatly from the prior work of Dr.
Quarterman (Elsie) and many of her graduate students at Vanderbilt
University who had done vegetation and rare plant studies in the
Central Basin of Tennessee.
For help with understanding and
conserving the best examples of cedar glades and their many endemic,
nearly endemic, or otherwise rare Tennessee plant species, I and
other colleagues frequently turned to Elsie and her Continue reading
Here is video of the 11 April 2008 dedication of the Elsie Quarterman Cedar Glade Wildflower Festival at Cedars of Lebanon State Park,
posted on YouTube 29 January 2009 by the MTSU Center for Cedar Glade Studies.
-jsq
In the Tennesseean today,
Elsie Quarterman (1910 – 2014)
Elsie Quarterman, Nashville, TN
A Memorial service will be held at 10 a.m., Saturday, June 21, 2014
at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3900 West End Avenue, with a
reception at the church following the service. Guestbook
crawfordservices.com.Crawford Mortuary & Crematory, 615-254-8200.
Today Aunt Elsie stepped over the final fence,
dying peacefully at her home in Nashville, Tennessee,
attended by her nephew Patrick and his wife Ann,
as she had wanted.
Arrangements are still in progress.
Perhaps more about the family later.
For now, here is a biography with some pictures.
The Wilson Post wrote 20 April 2011,
Quarterman shares fervor for cedar glades,
…her passion for the plant life of Middle Tennessee’s cedar glades
blooms ever strong through the generations of students she inspired
at Vanderbilt University from the 1940s into the mid-1970s. And those
students, many now teachers themselves, continue to inspire new students
and conservationists….
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:
