Our town has an annual spring cleaning day when it will pick up all the trash you put curbside. That led us to Coronavirus-basement-scouring-and-purging. In that project, I came across some boxes of old letters. Among the treasures were a couple notes from my dear mentor Erna Nixon. I also found my college essay which I wrote about her and her efforts to preserve wilderness in her community. The essay did its work. I was accepted, and I always remember Erna this time of year when I see the first crocus emerge. Before I left for school, she told me the woods on Northwestern campus are filled with purple and white crocus. Sure enough, each spring outside the two buildings I had most of my classes, a carpet of purple and white flowers would display.
She had been a biology teacher in Chicago before retiring to Florida with her husband. She found an area in her village called a hammock, which is slightly elevated ground containing trees and other plants different than the surrounding pine and palmetto scrub-land in central and south Florida. She convinced the village to set aside the land, and she blazed a figure eight trail through the hammock, and would lead walks through this jewel. I was there when the village dedicated the area and named it “Erna Nixon Hammock.” It would be a sanctuary for me, and I’d sometimes encounter her on my walks there or go to her house and chat about discoveries I made there.
Red maple and ferns, Erna Nixon Park
She realized the hammock and other unusual features extended outside the village boundaries, and so were unprotected and at risk for development. She convinced the county to protect an extended area, and it would eventually be named “Erna Nixon Park.” But the future park ecosystem was still under threat if a developer’s planned mall would be built too close.
I would visit Mrs. Nixon whenever I’d return to Florida, and it must’ve been after one such visit that she wrote to me in early 1982, and of her efforts even at 90 to fight for the wilderness.
Thank you for helping me to celebrate my 90th Christmas! (I was less than two months old on my first.) I’m sure I was far more helpless then than now.
Both the old hammock and the newish park are thriving. Your folks may have mentioned the terrific efforts which have been made to get the Ohio developer to change his mind as to the location. It is a long, complicated story and I’ll not bore you with the details.
One feature in the Park not found in the Hammock is a shallow wetland area. The hammock has a dense canopy of trees, but the wetland area is open with lots of grasses and ferns, and water-loving Red Maple grows.
Red, white and blue
I apparently missed her on a visit in late 1983, but got a note in return:
You will be in my mind whether or not we write, meet or otherwise.
I keep amazingly busy and in excellent health. In less than a month I will have reached my 92nd. I just can’t comprehend it. So I brag about my age and Enjoy it. Life has given me so many experiences—all kinds!
This coming Sunday (Oct 8) I will be privileged to be one of many speakers & special attractions at the Erna Nixon Park. The Junior League of South Brevard, Inc., is sponsoring the event. I am so glad that I can continue in such activities. This affair is advertised as “An Afternoon with Nature” . . . from 12 to 5 p.m. Since I am not going out on long Tours, I think I’ll give an Imaginary one and call it: “Take a walk with me.”
I would imagine she described a walk through the figure eight trail she made through the Hammock or along the 3,000 foot boardwalk that circles through the Park. After leaving the wetland area, the boardwalk rises (a few feet!) into the hardwood hammock. A lovely moss covered Live Oak stands sentry.
Erna Nixon Park boardwalk
I remember sitting in her living room one day when I’d likely biked to the hammock and then paid her a visit as she went through one of her books to identify a plant or insect I discovered, and she said something such as, “I must learn at least one new thing every day.” As a young boy, I couldn’t imagine someone in her 80s would still be learning things. As I began my last year of law school, she wrote:
While I write, a big Bull Frog keeps distracting me but I like it. I hope you will seek out the Wilderness Places when you are busy with your Career. You will need the release and relaxation.
. . . .
When I see you again, I want to tell you about the amazing appearance of a seldom seen flower which has appeared in a ditch nearby — (called Nama or Hydrolea).
Your life of Learning is really just beginning — and who knows what may be ahead in the way of schooling! Congratulations on what you have accomplished. I will always be interested.
Most Sincerely,
Erna Nixon
A light in the wilderness