Yosemite Author Shirley Sargent Dies

A neurological disorder didn't stop her vivacious spirit.

by Mark Grossi
Fresno Bee - December 6, 2004

Typing with one finger, Shirley Sargent wrote books about Yosemite National Park, a home she held in love and reverence.

In a place known for world-class rock climbing, backpacking and other physically strenuous activities, Shirley Sargent made her mark from a wheelchair. She died Friday at age 77 in Mariposa, just west of Yosemite.Miss Sargent spent most of her adult life living in a remote part of Yosemite, two miles from the nearest neighbor.

Suffering the effects of a neurological disorder called dystonia for much of her life, she had body tremors and had to hold one hand steady with the other as she typed. It didn't stop her from writing about two dozen books about the park and emerging as the preeminent park historian.

One of the best-known residents of Yosemite National Park, she was also just known as "Shirley," and letters simply addressed to "Shirley, Yosemite National Park" were delivered to her without difficulty.

Her tenacity, independence and drive far overshadowed her handicap, according to those who knew her.

"Even without her handicaps, she would have been a remarkable woman, but then you add the fact that despite her limitations she accomplished so much," said niece Kathy Chapell of Mariposa, who lived with her aunt in later years.As a child, Chapell spent summers with Miss Sargent.

"She expected us to work hard in the morning and play in the afternoon," she said. "She taught us discipline and took us swimming. She valued work and fun."

Miss Sargent, who knew such Sierra luminaries as photographer Ansel Adams, wrote "The Ahwahnee Hotel," "Yosemite and Its Innkeepers," "Yosemite, The First 100 Years" and "Protecting Paradise, Yosemite Rangers 1898-1960."

"She was spunky and persistent," said National Park Service historian Jim Snyder, who knew her for more than 30 years. "She had the personality and interest to draw people in."

She first came to the Central California park as a child when her father, Robert Sargent, worked as a surveyor on the Tioga Road in the park's high country. She lived at Tuolumne Meadows in summers.

In the past decade, she published a book called "Enchanted Childhood" about growing up in Yosemite.In 1964 she acquired the Flying Spur homestead, which originally belonged to Theodore S. Solomons, the subject of her 1989 book "Solomons of the Sierra: The Pioneer of the John Muir Trail."

Flying Spur became the name of the publishing firm she co-founded with printer and historian Hank Johnston. Johnston, a longtime friend, said Miss Sargent loved her home in Foresta. She never let her disability stand in her way, he said.

"One night, her car stalled about a mile from her house," he said. "She crawled all the way back."

On Aug. 9, 1990, the wheelchair-bound Miss Sargent was carried from her burning home by firefighters as flames from a lightning-spawned fire destroyed most of Foresta, about 10 miles northwest of Yosemite Valley, consuming nearly 70 homes.

Historian and author Shirley Sargent, left, and Yosemite park ranger Fred Fisher, right, linger outside her new home in 1991, a year after a fire destroyed her former dwelling. Fresno Bee File

Miss Sargent rebuilt her home once again around Solomons' massive stone fireplace, the only remaining structure from an earlier, devastating fire that had destroyed the homestead at Flying Spur in 1936, and which had so captured her imagination upon finding it in the early 1960s.

Miss Sargent is survived by her nieces Chappell, Nancy Hardwick and Susan Davies, several grandnieces and grandnephews, and a cousin, Barbara Billeter.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, 1 East Wacker Drive, Suite 2430, Chicago, IL 60601- 1905; www.dystonia-foundation.org.