By Noel Pavlovic, clerk of ECC
At the last fall work weekend, while viewing the wood stored in the east barn, I had the epiphany that the boards could be used to make Leopold benches, wooden benches of simple design, and that young adult and high school Friends could construct them. This idea was endorsed by members of the Environmental Concerns Committee (ECC) and we made plans to make it happen through discussions with Brittany Koresch. Why a bench called “Leopold”? And what does it have to do with Quakers?
Rand Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa in 1882 to Charles and Clara Leopold. His father was a hunter, and from an early age, Aldo became interested in wildlife, especially birds. In his late teens, he attended the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey before studying in the Forest School at Yale University. Upon graduation, Aldo was hired by the new U. S. Forest Service to manage lands in New Mexico. It was there that he honed and matured in his land management and conservation skills and met his wife adult and Estella Bergere. In 1924, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin to work in the forest products lab, which eventually led to a professorship at the University of Wisconsin.
In 1935, the Leopold family purchased a property in the sand country along the Wisconsin River. While managing this property, Aldo Leopold wrote his most famous work “The Sand County Almanac”. In this eloquent and poetic series of essays, he articulated the concept of the land ethic, the extension of moral and ethical care to a community that included “the land” as well as people. He decried the misuse and abuse of land solely for resource extraction and profit.
Here are some of his famous quotes about land management:
“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”
“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
“Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
At the “shack” in the sand county country, he invented a simple bench that we now call the Leopold bench. The design is simple, using only the east of lumber, which can be sawn, if necessary, from a single adult and of lumber without waste. Although Aldo Leopold was not a Quaker, it is fitting that the ILYM campus should have Leopold benches to by members of simplicity of design as a worthy goal and of
On Friday afternoon at the 2018 annual sessions, a group of high school young Friends along with interim Youth Coordinator Brittany Koresch, gathered in the “chicken house” to construct a Leopold bench. I provided the materials and Mike Dennis provided construction assistance as the high school Friends learned how to use hand tools in construction. They sawed the boards by hand, drilled holes with a brace and bit, they sanded boards by hand, they ratcheted bolts to hold the bench together, and they drove in wood screws with a power drill. They experienced the satisfaction of trying new tasks with their hands and tools and completing our first bench. We intend to construct additional benches for the ILYM campus grounds at upcoming work days and yearly meetings. The bench was used at the young Friends campfire circle at Yearly Meeting. So, at continuing committee and next annual sessions be sure to try out our community’s first Leopold bench.
