Park Historian Mourns Loss of 30 Years’ Work

Shirley Sargent was still trembling with grief Saturday over the loss of treasured historical volumes, photos and artifacts that she collected for nearly three decades as Yosemite’s unofficial historian.

Never mind that she nearly lost her life. Or that she saw her home and all her personal belongings destroyed in the flames Thursday that swept through the tiny private enclave of Foresta, where she and 60 others lived quietly inside the park.

It was the loss of 25 volumes she had written about Yosemite, related manuscripts, original watercolor pictures and autographed park photos by the famed Ansel Adams that nearly brought her to tears.

“I lost about 30 years of my life,” the frail 63-year-old woman said as she peered into the smoky skies above. “They’re all gone.”

Sargent had originally withdrawn from friends and inquiring reporters alike in the hours after the fire tore through tiny Foresta. She said she wanted to think about the loss. But on Saturday she decided to attend an “evacuation” picnic staged at the rustic Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley.

The picnic, sponsored by the hotel, attracted about 400 firefighters, victims and others who had spent the last few days in the nearly empty Yosemite Valley.

The Yosemite devotee maneuvered her motorized wheelchair around the hotel’s lawn to greet friends as well as total strangers who had heard about her story.

“I am sill numb about the enormity of my loss,” she said.

For Sargent, Yosemite history is everything.

“Say you are a tourist in the (Yosemite) Valley,” she told a Times reporter in 1985. “You may look up and see a pillar of rock and say, ‘Wow, look at that,’ and then you remember from what you read that a woman first climbed it in 1875. Wouldn’t that make it more singular to you, more exciting?”

Her love for her collection of Yosemite lore was such that she ignored early warnings last Wednesday that a fire, which has burned nearly 10,000 acres in the park, would destroy her home.

But by the next afternoon, the flames began devouring Foresta, and firefighters decided it was time for Yosemite’s walking encyclopedia to beat a hasty retreat.

“They threw me in a pumper (fire engine) and took off,” Sargent recalled.

The wooden house was engulfed in flames seconds later.

Her voice began to crack as she expressed her fears over whether any of her collection could be replaced.

“Devastating . . . just devastating,” she said softly.

Suddenly, she became aware of the crowd of reporters and onlookers who were listening to her story. “This is supposed to be a wake, isn’t it?” she asked. “Well, wakes are for singing and that stuff.”

With that Sargent motored over to sample the food and greet picnic guests.

But she had some words for the assembled news reporters who seemed moved by her speech.

“I’m going back to Foresta,” she promised.