Echoes of the Olmsted Elm Alan Banks Essay

Job #673,  00673-01-p18 400 dpi354, F.L. Olmsted, Brookline, MA

Olmsted Archives

I first met the elm the first time I came to the Olmsted site in the late fall of 1990. I was a recent graduate with a BA in History and had been looking for work as a high school teacher. The job market was not great, so I decided to look into the museum field. In those days you entered the site around the backside of the site and when you cleared the back fence, you were immediately struck with what might be called the “classic” view of the elm on the South Lawn. At that point, my dendrological knowledge was pretty much that I knew the difference between a tree and a shrub. Of course, once I started working at Fairsted, I entered a steep learning curve about trees in general and elms in particular.

The elm was in decent shape in 1991 when I first saw it leaf out. It certainly created a great canopy for anyone out on the South Lawn and I realized quickly that it helped to moderate the temperature of the southwest side of the house. I don’t know if Olmsted would have built the Plant Room, with all its windows, if the cooling effect of the elm was not available. When I moved into the office on the floor above the Plant Room, its effects were even more pronounced and when it was removed in 2011, it became apparent that my office, which now is a conference room, would benefit greatly from the new geothermal cooling system that has since been installed.

On a more personal note, the elm was a place to relax beneath on a hot summer day. It was a tree that, perhaps because of its given name of the “Olmsted Elm”, that it seemed to almost have a personality – a “treesonality”? Being the oldest piece of plant material on the grounds, it was like an anchor to the rest of the landscape. I remember when we started having some of the initial meetings about its removal that it almost seemed like we were almost discussing euthanasia, rather than cutting down a tree. Anytime I brought anyone to the site, it was always the elm that I would save for last on my tour. This included family members. In the summer of 1991 I took the last picture of my wife and in-laws beneath its branches. My father-in-law passed away later that year and when the elm came down in March of 2011 it had outlived all of them. Something not lost on me when it was removed.

Alan Banks
Supervisory Park Ranger
Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site