A letter to Rachel Carson on the occasion of her 100th birthday
April 20, 2007

Dear Rachel:

I stopped by your old house yesterday. You'll be happy to know that things there look great. I know you were worried about the advent of a silent spring, but the birds are still singing a beautiful chorus over there this year. We walked around and saw cardinals, titmice, goldfinches and chickadees. A big old Coopers Hawk even landed at one point above our heads and looked around hungrily. A woman at the house told me she's heard some owls calling at night, too.

Rachel Carson in 1951.

We wandered around for a while, wondering whether you planted the trees on the property. Some of them seem like they could be old enough, but its hard to know. One nice tree you would really love if you saw it…it is riddled with hollows where the birds seem to have taken up residence, with its gnarled trunk making the best kind of front yard sculpture.

Your garden does need some work, but the people who work there are planning to put in something really nice. They've hired a landscape designer who understands the importance of ecological balance. She's going to do something really great with the yard to appropriately honor your legacy.

One problem she and the current owners must face first is the battle with invasive exotic plants. This is something new that has happened since you died: we've discovered that some of the plants we humans have moved from continent to continent can become quite aggressive. Everyone is puzzled about this, and many ecologists are trying to find a long term solution. The thing is, some plants don't just look pretty. They can very be destructive.

Yesterday, as we walked around your old place we wondered what you would do if you were still there. Currently, many people feel forced to use small, judicious amounts of herbicide to control these destructive weeds. We wondered how you'd feel about that. These herbicides are not as destructive as some of the pesticides you wrote about forty years ago. But they are strong chemicals which can be problematic. Many people find they must choose between one kind of destruction (herbicidal products) and another (invasive exotic plants). Some of our parks are so over run with these invaders, it would probably break your heart. In some places you can find nothing but exotic vines, smothering huge old trees with their rampant growth. We are losing our native wildflowers and the forests are suffering, consequently the birds and other animals you loved so much are struggling to find good habitat.

But despite some of the invaders, your yard is still a vibrant, peaceful oasis, a little parcel of woods where the fiddleheads of ferns are emerging in great numbers this week, popping out among thousands of bluebells which grow everywhere on your old property. Just down the street that little wet culvert that you liked to visit is still home to hundreds of tadpoles. We walked down the lane and took a look. It was simply amazing.

As we looked at those tadpoles, I remembered how your former colleagues said you would carefully return the samples you examined under the microscope when you worked near the ocean. People said you didn't like to be callous to the living creatures you studied. You were objective, but not heartless.

You'd be happy to know that way of thinking and those kinds of practices have increased since your death. Now lots of people talk about the scientific subjects they study with a mix of awe and inspiration. And there are so many young, female biologists working out there in the field. Many who were just young girls when you were doing your research are now presidents of great scientific societies and heads of entire government agencies.

Photo: Julie Wiatt

The green carpet and cheery yellow flowers of invasive lesser celandine pose a problem for native plants.

I think people like you, who had the courage to study science and the heart to sound the alarm bell on the need for conservation made a huge difference. Many of the people who work now to protect the environment do so because you paved the way, you opened the door, you led the charge.

But not all changes have been good. We were able to stop the use of some pesticides, including DDT. And organic food is quite fashionable. But large scale agriculture still uses large amounts of pesticides, and fertilizers, too, which often foul our waterways.

Really, it seems the more we learn about our globe, the more we realize we are messing it up. You helped us to realize that the chemicals we used so prolifically were killing the animals around us. Now we learn that our use of fossil fuel is destroying the atmosphere. Our planet is being altered, and the entire global ecosystem is beginning to see the problems this can cause. I despair to realize that we know very little about how to sustain ourselves for the long run. So much which is beautiful and important could be lost.

So on the eve of your birthday this year I have been reading about you a lot.

This month I read in the Audubon Naturalist Society newsletter the recollections of some of their members who did get to meet and work with you. I picture what that would have been like, and I imagine you as the kind of mentor every young naturalist would love to have.

Photos: Julie Wiatt

Fields of Virginia Bluebells (immediately above) and Spring Beauties (top) are threatened by invasive species.

I think you were probably like so many older "women of the woods" that I have known in the last ten years. You were probably there at the center in the early in morning with your sturdy walking boots, standing at the shelf paging through books, tracking down the correct species name for some interesting find like a flower or a feather. I'm sure that you'd be the one with a ready smile and a funny, self-deprecating joke who'd be willing to lead a team of young kids across the hills to search for salamanders. I would've liked to tag along. Maybe it would have helped to scope out some of your wisdom in a face-to-face encounter.

But then again, maybe it is my fate to catch your baton, take up your call to attention, and work for the future, keeping science as the compass.

I began thinking about this a lot as I walked through your former office. Diana Post, who heads an organization named after you (the Rachel Carson Council), told me that your office remains as it did so many years ago. You wanted lots of windows, she explained, so you could look out at the world as you worked. I sit in my dark little basement and dream of such an office as I write this today.

But somehow realizing that you did so much of your most significant work late in your career, mostly from a modest ranch-style house here in my own home town is so inspiring—a herald to my heart to keep typing, keep trying to promote the science, help people understand the complexities of our ecosystems and their problems, and to encourage people to enjoy and love the natural world around them. Although I will never be able to do anything close to what you did, I can throw a few small pebbles in the vast ocean of understanding while I'm here. Maybe I can teach the children around me to appreciate nature, too.

So as I sign off here I realize I need a new copy of Silent Spring, and maybe also your other great book, The Sense of Wonder. I think book shopping would be the most fitting way for me to celebrate your 100 th birthday.

Thanks for all the hard work. It was definitely appreciated.

— Alison Gillespie

Carson lived and worked in Silver Spring, very close to the Northwest Branch. She worked as a scientific editor for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, putting her training as a zoologist to work checking reports on topics which included DDT. People who knew her at the time say she was a reluctant crusader in the beginning, but felt called by responsibility to write Silent Spring , wherein she publicized the negative environmental impacts of pesticides, including DDT.

This month marks the 100th anniversary of Rachel Carson's birth. There are many events taking place throughout our area to commemorate her life and work. Visit the Voice Calendar, or the Montgomery Parks website for more information on these events.

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