Shirley Sargent
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Shirley Sargent | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 12, 1927 Pasadena, California, U.S. |
| Died | December 3, 2004 (aged 77) Mariposa, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Historian, novelist |
Shirley Sargent (July 12, 1927 – December 3, 2004) was an historian of the Yosemite area in the United States.[1]
Sargent was born in Pasadena, California. Her father was a surveyor who helped rebuild the Tioga Road in Yosemite National Park, starting in 1936.[2] She spent her childhood as a self-described "tomboy" in Yosemite. She had dystonia musculorum deformans, which made her reliant on a wheelchair from age 14.[1][3] She typed her publications using only one finger, and cycled around on a three-wheeler.[4]
She earned her Associate Degree from Pasadena City College in 1947 and opened a nursery school in Pasadena.[2][4]
She also worked as an archivist at the Yosemite Park & Curry Co.[1]
Sargent published her first book, Pipeline Down the Valley in 1955.[1]
After writing Wawona's Yesterdays in 1961, she went on to write several other Yosemite History books, focusing on stories about people - making them come alive. Her most authoritative book is Galen Clark: Yosemite Guardian.
Sargent self-published most of her books, with printer and historian Hank Johnson, under the name Flying Spur Press.[4] She later founded her own imprint, Ponderosa Press.[5] Other popular books of hers include Pioneers in Petticoats, John Muir in Yosemite National Park, Yosemite & Its Innkeepers, and Yosemite Chapel 1879-1989.
She also edited James Mason Hutchings' account of his journey across California in 1849.[6][7]
Later life
In 1961, she bought and built on Theodore Solomons' homesite in Foresta, California, which had only a fireplace surviving from a 1936 fire; she called her new home Flying Spur, but it burned in the 1990 Yosemite A-Rock Fire, which also destroyed her historical papers.[2] She rebuilt her home, but before her death she had to move to her parents' old home in Mariposa, California, due to her illness. She died at her home there.
