For our sixth and final episode of this series, we turn to the remarkable story of Joanne McElfresh. Joanne was born in 1934 and bounced around the country as an army brat before returning to Missoula to attend the University of Montana, where she earned a forestry degree, a rare feat for a woman at that time. In 1957, Joanne joined the agency, becoming the first female forester ever hired by the United States Forest Service.

In our fifth installment of "What Did We Get Ourselves Into?" we look at the world through the eyes of Joyce O’Neal, a southern belle who married her childhood sweetheart Sonny and began a lifelong journey through the outfit. As husband and wife, they grew alongside the forests that Sonny called home. They persevered together through tragedies and hardships but always found a way to laugh in spite of it all.

In our fourth episode, we take a journey alongside Carl and Vicki Pence, two Idaho natives who ventured hand-in-hand through the peaks and valleys of life. Over a forty-year career together in the Forest Service, Carl and Vicki survived historic blizzards, menacing wildfires, and moments of intense grief. Still smitten all these decades later, they are living examples of the transformative power of love.

In Episode Three we look at the world through the eyes of Carma Bosworth. From her small-town beginnings, Carma went on to travel the Mountain West with her husband Dale, a second-generation forester who would go on to become Chief of the whole outfit. Throughout his 41-year stint in the Forest Service, Carma stood with Dale as they rose through the ranks and moved over a dozen times.

In the second episode of "What Did We Get Ourselves Into?" we explore the life of Linda Hicks, who married into the Forest Service in 1967 and started a journey that swept her from the banks of the Red River in Shreveport, Louisiana to the mountains of Missoula, Montana, and everywhere in between. Along the way she lived in cabins without electricity, trailers stalked daily by grizzly bears, and endured a series of hardships that would test even the strongest pioneers of the early West.

In the debut episode of "What Did We Get Ourselves Into?" NMFSH Oral Historian James Wall interviews Dr. Rachel Kline about her forthcoming history of the role of women in the United States Forest Service and the experiences of the early wives who "married the outfit."

Additional Sources:

What Did She Say? Recovering Women's Voices To Our Land Ethic Narratives