There's been way too much mystery about the man who wrote the 1971 book Herrontown Woods: A Guide to a Natural Preserve. True, the names Richard and Kramer are common, making it harder to google the name, but how many botany PhD's out of Rutgers named Richard J. Kramer could there be? The book itself devotes only one sentence to Dr. Kramer, divulging only that he "served for two summers as Herrontown Woods park naturalist." That would have been in the mid-1960s, when Kramer was doing the field work for his dissertation about Herrontown Woods. Only ten years earlier, in 1957, had the Veblens donated Herrontown Woods as Mercer County's first nature preserve.
Somewhere on the internet back in 2016, I found the following about Kramer, which has proved less than accurate:
"A native of Fairmont. Minn., he is a graduate of St. John's University in Maryland, and holds an M.S. in plant ecology from Arizona State University, where he also received a graduate teaching assistantship. Mr. Kramer has worked for the U.S. Forest Service, and spent two years in the Army as a second lieutenant."
Those with a keen eye will note that there is no St. John's University in Maryland, but rather St. John's College, renowned since the 1930s for its Great Books program in liberal arts. Its Maryland campus is squeezed onto 36 acres in an urban setting.
It took our genealogist, Patricia Brady, who teaches at Rutgers. to confirm that a young Richard Kramer spent his college years at St. John's University in Minnesota, known for its sprawling, verdant campus--a far more fitting and inspirational setting for a future botanist. The University's website describes a campus
"set amid 3.300 acres of varied terrain ... remarkable in its natural beauty. It includes wetlands, several lakes, an oak savanna, a restored prairie, and hiking trails that wind through an extensive pine and hardwood forest."
According to her research, our future author of Herrontown Woods was born May 27, 1938 in Martin, MN--an unincorporated town in the Chippewa National Forest. Not far away is Lake Itasca, where the Mississippi River is said to begin. He was the son of John Kramer and Genevieve Devine, and had two brothers, Thomas and Edward.
After receiving a B.A. from verdant St John's U, he headed to the Arizona desert to gain a M.S. degree from Arizona State U. All this would prepare him for writing his dissertation in New Jersey, with the catchy title The biotic and abiotic influences on, and delimitation of, the plant associations in Herrontown Woods, Mercer County, New Jersey.
A clue to how Kramer ended up at Rutgers for his PhD can be found in the Herrontown Woods book's acknowledgements. The book was edited by Professor Murray F. Buell, Department of Botany. Among Buell's many contributions to ecology was his role as director of the
William L. Hutcheson Forest. According to a biography on the Ecological Society of America's website, "He devoted great effort in setting aside this forest and in making it into a
major ecological study area and one of the best studied woods in North America." Some of Buell's areas of interest seem particularly relevant for Herrontown Woods: the impact of people on park ecosystems, the ecology of power line right of ways, and "tension zones" between vegetation types. As someone who learned of fire ecology in the 1970s, I was also intrigued by Buell's research decades earlier into the effect of fire use on forests and hydrology.
Kramer likely first came under the influence of Buell close to his hometown in Minnesota. According to the Buell biography:
(Buell's) "life touched many hundreds of North American ecologists through the Rutgers Ecology Seminar that he initiated and sponsored. In the many summers he taught at the University of Minnesota's Lake Itasca Biological Station, he recognized exceptionally promising young students. Often the fortunate person was hired as an assistant, transported across the country in his car, fed chicken dinners and given a thorough introduction to life as a field ecologist."
1968 was a big year for Richard J. Kramer. He finished his dissertation at Rutgers, married Patricia Ann Cahill of Highland Park, NJ, and became an assistant professor at Mary Baldwin College in Stanton, Virginia. At the time, Baldwin was an all-women's college that had only become racially desegregated five years prior. His wife was due to attend the college at which he was teaching.
It appears that Kramer's assistant professorship at Baldwin did not translate into an academic career. By 1972, he had undertaken a career in the environmental profession that may have been influenced by an ongoing mentorship by Buell. At various points in his life, Kramer lived in Cary, N.C. (close to where Buell had done his early ecological studies at NC State), and in Redlands, CA (near where Buell briefly held a visiting position at U of C--Santa Barbara in the 1970s). Kramer died Jan. 12, 2002 in San Bernardino.
One internet tidbit that suggests Kramer had an impactful environmental career is the "Kramer Medal for Environmental Practice Excellence," overseen by the Academy of Board Certified Environmental Professionals (ABCEP). According to the website:
The Dr. Richard J. Kramer, CEP, Memorial Award for Environmental Excellence was established by the ABCEP to recognize extraordinary achievements of individuals in the environmental profession.My life has significant parallels to Kramer's, beyond being a botanist who took a deep interest in Herrontown Woods, 40 year's after Kramer's two year tenure. I, too, grew up surrounded by natural splendor in the midwest (Wisconsin and Michigan), followed by some years in North Carolina before moving to Princeton. In my 20s, I spent a few months living in a tipi near Black Duck, MN, an hour away from where he grew up. Kramer's botanical mentor, Murray Buell, had a close professional partnership with his wife Helen Foot Buell. Similarly, my botanical mentor at the University of Michigan, Warren (Herb) Wagner, worked closely with his wife, Flora Wagner, whom I remember sitting in the room across the hall from his office, peering into a microscope. Many times I accompanied Wagner on his field trips in search of Botrychium ferns and butterflies.
Dr. Kramer's involvement in ABCEP spanned more than two decades. In 1982, he earned his Certified Environmental Professional (CEP) designation. He served on the Academy's Certification Review Board from 1985 to 1999, when he resigned to become the first President of the Academy. Dr. Kramer began his career in the environmental profession in 1972. For many years he was head of the environmental planning and NEPA office for the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in California.
The award was presented for the first time in 2004, to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the creation of the Certified Environmental Professional credential by the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP) and the 5th Anniversary of the creation of the ABCEP, which was created in 1999 to oversee the CEP program. The objective of the award is to nationally recognize extraordinary achievements, leadership, and spirit of CEPs.
Perhaps some day we'll learn more about Richard J. Kramer--his middle name for instance, and something about his wife. A photo would be nice, but this is a good start.
Update: Many thanks to Liz Knuth, Archives Associate at the library for St. John's University in Minnesota, for her generous sharing of the following photos and other gleanings from the University's archives. The registrar's office also helped out with some info.
Kramer earned a B.A. in biology from SJU in 1960, which happens to be the year Oswald Veblen died. There are a few parallels between his life and Veblen's. Both came from families with Minnesota roots. Both received military training in midwestern universities and served stints in the military later on. Of Kramer, SJU's Liz Knuth wrote, "Two years of Military Science were obligatory at that time, but not everyone stuck it out all four years." In his military studies, he might have learned of Veblen's leading role in advancing ballistics during the World Wars.
We can wonder if these parallels were known to Kramer when he decided to devote his graduate years in New Jersey to an ecological study of Herrontown Woods.
One other thing Liz discovered: The "J" in Richard J. Kramer stands for John. Of the many people who have given their time and talent to studying and rehabilitating the Veblens' legacy of land and buildings, some make such special contributions that they seem like "angels in our midst." For the book he wrote about Herrontown Woods, Richard J. Kramer will always be our "Saint John."
No comments:
Post a Comment