Part of a series of articles titled Women's History in the Pacific West - California-Great Basin Collection.
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Shirley Sargent
Courtesy of the Yosemite National Park Archives, Museum, and Library
Born on July 12, 1927 in Pasadena California, Shirley Sargent grew up to become a prolific historian of Yosemite National Park. At nine years old, Sargent experienced living in the national park for the first time when her father took a temporary job as a park highway surveyor. Although the family did not stay in Yosemite long, it was enough for the young girl to develop a deep affinity for the place. As she described it late in her life, “This place is a magnet. I never feel truly whole away from here.”1 After graduating from Pasadena City College in 1947, Sargent opened the Topsy-Turvey Nursery School at her home in Pasadena, but she continued to spend summers in Yosemite. She also published her first novel, Pipeline Down The Valley (1955).2
In 1961 Sargent moved to Foresta, a community within Yosemite National Park, full time. She soon purchased a small plot of land that had previously belonged to Sierra Nevada settler Theodore Solomons. A fire had destroyed most of his cabin decades earlier, but Sargent built her new home around the surviving fireplace and kept the original name, “Flying Spur.” Although the cabin was quite isolated, Sargent became such a renowned fixture at Yosemite that people could get their letters to her using the simple address “Shirley, Yosemite National Park.”3 She resided at the Flying Spur for almost thirty years, researching, writing, and working as an archivist for the Yosemite Park & Curry Co. For her entire adult life, Sargent lived with dystonia, a neuromuscular disorder that caused her muscles to contract uncontrollably and made certain deliberate movements like walking and typing extremely difficult. With help from her friends and family, Shirley found ways to work with her disability, including typing with one finger, using a wheelchair, and biking around the park on her three-wheeler. Yosemite National Park remained a challenging place to navigate as a disabled person throughout Sargent’s life. However, starting in the 1970s, concerted efforts by Yosemite staff members to improve accessibility, such as adding curb cuts to sidewalks and ramps to public buildings, did ease Sargent’s ability to move through the park over the decades.4
Sargent wrote over 30 books and 100 articles that encompass a wide range of literary styles from young adult fiction to biographies, including her best-selling book John Muir in Yosemite National Park (1972). She highlighted the role of women in Yosemite’s history in her books Pioneers in Petticoats: Yosemite’s Early Women. 1856-1900 (1992, seventh edition) and Yosemite’s Innkeepers: The Story of a Great Park and its Chief Concessionaires (2000). Many of Sargent’s books were published by the Flying Spur Press, which she co-founded with her neighbor, the historian Hank Johnson, in 1966. In addition to publishing books, the press also sold Yosemite-themed calendars, postcards, and bumper stickers. Sargent died at home in Mariposa, California on December 3, 2004 at the age of 77, but her books continue to delight and inform visitors about her beloved Yosemite.5
1 Joe Holley, “Shirley Sargent.” The Washington Post, December 10, 2004, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2004/12/10/shirley-sargent/e451adbd-15ee-4ff7-81e5-b6092acd989c/.
2 - Morgan Gifuers, updated by Lauren Dest, Finding Aid: Shirley Sargent Collection 1811-2006 (bulk dates: 1930-2004), Yosemite National Park, National Park Service, https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8c2521s/; Myrna Oliver, "Shirley Sargent, 77; Author's Books Reveled in Yosemite," Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2004, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-dec-08-me-sargent8-story.html.
3 The Associated Press, “Shirley Sargent, 77, Who Wrote of Yosemite, Is Dead,” The New York Times, December 13, 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/books/shirley-sargent-77-who-wrote-of-yosemite-is-dead.html.
4 - Gifuers, updated by Dest, Finding Aid; Oliver, "Shirley Sargent, 77.”
5 - Gifuers, updated by Dest, Finding Aid; Oliver, "Shirley Sargent, 77.”
Acknowledgements
This project was made possible in part by a grant from the National Park Foundation.
This project was conducted in Partnership with the University of California Davis History Department through the Californian Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, CA# P20AC00946
Last updated: February 28, 2023