Hoosier Heroes of History - Gene Stratton Porter Traditional Cache
Hoosier Heroes of History - Gene Stratton Porter
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Hoosier students will recall the Indiana History curriculum we had in fourth grade. To some the names, dates and places were boring. But it sparked in me a lifelong love of my state and its history. While my classmates idolized sports stars or celebrities the men and women who made Indiana and our nation what it is became my childhood heroes. To be truthful my home state is an interesting place filled with fascinating people and places, both past and present. Let's discover some together.
Gene Stratton-Porter (August 17, 1863 – December 6, 1924), was a Wabash County, Indiana, native who became a self-trained American author, nature photographer, and naturalist. She received little formal schooling early in life however, she developed a strong interest in nature, especially birds. As a young girl, her father and her brother taught her to appreciate nature as she roamed freely around the family farm, observing animals in their natural habitats. She and Charles Porter were married on August 21, 1886. Gene Stratton-Porter retained her family surname as well as her husband's following her marriage. While her marriage provided financial security and personal independence, she sought additional roles beyond those of wife and mother. She took up writing in 1895 as an outlet for self-expression and as a means to earn her own income feeling that as long as her work did not interfere with the needs of her family, she was free to pursue her own interests. She began her literary career by observing and writing about birdlife of the upper Wabash River valley and the nature she had seen during visits to the Limberlost Swamp. In time, she became an independently wealthy novelist, nonfiction writer, and film producer.
Through her writing and photography, she demonstrated "her strong desire to instill her love of nature in others in order to improve their lives and preserve the natural world." In 1917 she became more active in the conservation movement when the Indiana General Assembly passed legislation to allow drainage of state-owned swamps in Noble and LaGrange Counties. She joined with others to urge the state legislature to repeal the law that would lead to the destruction of wetlands in northeastern Indiana. In 1922 she became a founding member of the Izaak Walton League, a national conservation group.
Stratton-Porter died at the age of sixty-one, in Los Angeles, California, of injuries received in a traffic accident. The Izaak Walton League paid tribute to her work in its publication, Outdoor America, following her death, "if we can write her epitaph in terms of clean rivers, clean outdoor playgrounds, and clean young hearts, we shall have done what she would have asked."
Her two former residences in Indiana, the Limberlost Cabin in Geneva and the Cabin at Wildflower Woods near Rome City, have been acquired by the State of Indiana and designated as state historic sites to honor her work and relate the story of her life.
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