Dee Hicks was my team leader and mentor at University School of Nashville. Before she retired to South Carolina, I tried to soak up as much educational wisdom from her as I could, to carry on her vision of what learning should be.
I have been in Seattle this week. Yesterday I had the great fortune to ferry to Bainbridge Island with friends, We walked the 2+ miles through the Bloedel Reserve.
In 1951, timber heir Prentice Bloedel and his wife Virginia purchased the property that would become Bloedel Reserve. It was their private residence for more than 30 years, many devoted to exploring the relationship between people and nature.
Yale-educated, Mr. Bloedel began a teaching career but soon became the reluctant heir to his father’s timber business. An environmentalist at heart, sculpting the landscape became the focus of Bloedel’s retirement. With the help of noted landscape architects and designers, he “wove” several unique landscape experiences throughout the native Pacific Northwest forest, creating a 150-acre garden and forest preserve, which he later donated to the community
Mr. Bloedel was deeply interested in the relationship between people and the natural world and the power of landscape to evoke emotions — from tranquility to exhilaration. He was ahead of his time in understanding the therapeutic power of nature and funded early research into the psychological effect of time spent outdoors.
My mentor and friend, Dee, devotes her time in retirement to her lush mountaintop gardens.
Here is to you dear Dee:
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
William Shakespeare, Troilus And Cressida
