Conservation Guardians of Northwest Illinois
Reminisce, Recognize and Renew: An Interview with the Founders
Twenty years ago, a small group of forward-looking people recognized
the beauty of Jo Daviess County and decided to work to preserve it.
They wanted to learn more about this lovely environment and educate
others to appreciate it. Barbara and John Rutherford, Joan and Dick
Harmet, Grace Storch, Jim Rachuy and Laura Dufford are among the founders
who launched The Natural Area Guardians of Jo Daviess County and who
remain active in the organization.
Originally part of the Jo Daviess
County Soil and Water Conservation District, the Guardians later merged
with the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation to become the Conservation
Guardians of Northwest Illinois. It’s time to celebrate! Everyone
is welcome on August 21st for brunch at Chestnut Mountain to commemorate
the founding of the Guardians in the spring of 1990. The festivities
will start at 10:30 a.m. with brunch and then follow with a program
to look back in time.
Do you remember when you joined the Natural Area Guardians? Do you
have a particular memory about the organization? Meet with old friends
and new members to do some reminiscing about how the Guardians developed.
The program will focus on recognizing the contributions of early leaders
who are still active in our very successful organization.
In the spring of 2008, when the Conservation Guardians realized that
the 20th Anniversary of the organization was approaching, Guardian
member Pam Johnson joined Ginger Bartot to work on the 20th Anniversary
celebration. A friend, neighbor and specialist in Oral History, Professor
Irene Beck of DePaul University, graciously agreed to help, and her
theoretical knowledge and empirical experience have been essential
to this project.
Here is an excerpt from the first of several interviews with founders:
Irene: Why do you think the Guardians have been successful…?
Joan Harmet: Perseverance, for one thing. I think
we were at a time when a lot of people began to retire here because
of its natural beauty and because of its remoteness…and so a
whole lot of people moved in more or less about the same time and
cared about the same things... it was very easy to make friends and
then it was very easy to join in a group together, to develop that
friendship and to develop the common goals of the Guardians. And it
just continues to be that way because still people are moving in and
still we can capture some of those people because it’s where
we are. It’s this area that people want to protect.
John Rutherford: When originally, it started up,
we had great faith that all the members of the Soil & Water Conservation
District would leap upon this opportunity. And I remember the first
meeting of the Soil & Water Conservation District that we attended
was at Stockton High School. And we placed an application blank on
every folding chair set up for the meeting. When the meeting was over
and people left, every application blank, blank, was still on the
chairs.
(Combined laughter). And probably the main person who was so unlike
the rest of the locals is Jim Rachuy. He was a big help and got us
off the ground and gave us names of people he thought would be interested.
But by and large what Joan said, it was kind of a social group.
Dick Harmet: And we all liked wine too.
Grace Storch: That didn’t come out right away.
(Laughter). And our famous potlucks didn’t come out right away
either. (Laughter)
Joan: Well, yeah. Then this leads to my thought
that, ‘Well, if this is the case, then education has got to
be our main goal. We have to get into things that are education.’
So we started planning programs, writing articles and doing things
that would have educational value. And it still is.
Barb Rutherford: That was really from Day One.
John: That’s what Barb and I were saying this
morning…Education primarily, both young and old.
Grace: We tried to get a fledgling group going with
young people and Laura was one of the…
Dick...one of the younger ones. (Laughter)
Laura Dufford: I had a special interest at that time…
Grace: But that didn’t fly because there weren’t
that many young families that we could get.
Dick: Local young families seemed not to be interested.
Irene: What kind of programs did you have?
Grace: We did field trips. We did a day on the Mississippi.
Barb: Well, no that, for the children, we had this
one: (Looking at documents) Nature Explorations. That was in ’97.
That was wonderful. All these different places and things that were
going on. It was a great day. We ended up at our train station. We
had hot dogs. Because we were trying to show where all these different
places are in the county. Nobody knew.
Dick: There were three programs in a row (Reading)
1993: Nature Exploration, Family Nature Exploration’95, Mississippi
River Symposium’97. All these were attempts to draw people who
were not members from the area to learn about the area. And we all
showed up. (Laughter) And some other people.
Combined speakers: And so did others.” “It
was successful”.
Grace: And we had a plan for barn owl recovery,
for building barn owl boxes. This brochure says 1992. We did that
with a grant that Laura applied for.
Joan: . . . the bluebird program actually captured
the county. It still does capture the county. There will be people
that will talk about bluebirds that don’t even know me or Grace
or any of the monitors but know all about the bluebirds and see all
the bluebirds and they talk about the bluebirds.
John: Your wife is the bluebird lady, isn’t she? (Laughter)
How best to interpret the interviewees’ words and the written
documents they have saved? We view this project as one history of
the Natural Area Guardians. A special full-color commemorative magazine
has been created and will be available at the brunch.
It is a nice reminder and souvenir and will foster renewing our commitment to the
future of Jo Daviess County. We hope members will use this as a building
block upon which to expand, contrast and shape yet other histories
that represent different voices, views, future times and yet-to-be-experienced events.
— Pam Johnson
More News & Field Notes
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John Rutherford
Guardian Founding Member
Joan Harmet
Guardian Founding Member
Jim Rachuy
Guardian Founding Member
Grace Storch
Guardian Founding Member
Barbara Rutherford
Guardian Founding Member
Laura Dufford
Guardian Founding Member
Dick Harmet
Guardian Founding Member