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SMNTY Classics: Ynés Mexía · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Okay, this is Anny and Samantha.
0:06
Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff I Never told you production by
0:08
Speaker 2: her video.
0:18
Speaker 3: Okay, so it's my turn pick out a classic, and
0:21
Speaker 3: of course I'm going to start out with Female First
0:24
Speaker 3: with Eves, who we love because she just brings us
0:26
Speaker 3: so many different types of women. And one of my
0:29
Speaker 3: favorites this year was INA's Mahea, who was one of
0:33
Speaker 3: the I think maybe only.
0:36
Speaker 1: Buttonists that we've talked about.
0:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, for the Female First, I'm trying to remember, but
0:41
Speaker 3: it was such just hearing about her introvertedness and her
0:45
Speaker 3: adventures and finding new species was one of my favorite things.
0:49
Speaker 3: To imagine it being a movie. I think we in
0:52
Speaker 3: so many episodes with Eves talking about that specifically, and
0:56
Speaker 3: Mayhea really felt like her biography should be somehow a movie.
1:02
Speaker 3: So would that please enjoy one of my favorites for
1:08
Speaker 3: this classic. Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
1:15
Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff I've Never told you prolection if
1:17
Speaker 2: I heart radio, And it is time for another edition
1:29
Speaker 2: of Female First, which means we are once again joined
1:32
Speaker 2: by the terrific, the fabulous Eves fucome Ese. Hey, you
1:36
Speaker 2: just reminded me that we haven't seen you since New
1:39
Speaker 2: Year's and I had I had a little bit of
1:43
Speaker 2: a moment.
1:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I felt it, but I understood though. That's why
1:47
Speaker 1: I didn't give you any flag for it, because I
1:49
Speaker 1: was like, wait a second. Last time we talked, you
1:52
Speaker 1: were like, see you in the New year. Somehow we're
1:56
Speaker 1: half the month in already.
1:57
Speaker 2: It's true. It's true. Well, how how was New Year's
2:02
Speaker 2: for you? How has the New Year been?
2:04
Speaker 1: The New Year has been good? Honestly, I know it's
2:08
Speaker 1: a whole thing, you know, refresh restart. People arguing about
2:10
Speaker 1: whether it's a real restarts the middle of winter, YadA, YadA, YadA,
2:14
Speaker 1: so far and so on, but it really does feel
2:18
Speaker 1: like a refresh like kind of a restart. For me.
2:20
Speaker 1: It's off to a good start. I am like not,
2:23
Speaker 1: I have goals that I have not been, you know,
2:27
Speaker 1: pressuring myself about that. I feel like I'm managing well.
2:29
Speaker 1: I have some Sankalpla's basically commitments I've created for myself
2:34
Speaker 1: for this year for things that I'm not doing and
2:37
Speaker 1: a thing that I'm not doing anything that I am
2:39
Speaker 1: doing that so far, you know, it's going okay. So yeah,
2:44
Speaker 1: it's it's been good. The actual New Year celebration. For me,
2:47
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything, which is what I wanted to do.
2:50
Speaker 1: So it's fine. And yeah, so I think over all
2:56
Speaker 1: I can say thumbs up to it. What about y'all
3:00
Speaker 1: thumbs up? I feel.
3:02
Speaker 2: Samantha asked me about the New Year, and I was like,
3:05
Speaker 2: it's like it just passed me by.
3:07
Speaker 1: I don't know.
3:08
Speaker 2: I I feel I'm stuck in some kind of temporal disintegration.
3:15
Speaker 2: We talked about this is where people don't know what
3:17
Speaker 2: time it is anymore, and so I just have like
3:21
Speaker 2: random days. I know something important is happening, but mostly
3:26
Speaker 2: it's been kind of the same, the same stuff, really busy.
3:31
Speaker 2: I will say, it's been a very busy start to
3:35
Speaker 2: the new year. But we got snow that was exciting.
3:37
Speaker 2: We talked about that in our experience with snow in
3:40
Speaker 2: the South.
3:41
Speaker 1: The thing is the thing about that though other people
3:43
Speaker 1: are excited for us too, Like so, I was talking
3:47
Speaker 1: to someone recently who doesn't even live here, she lives
3:50
Speaker 1: on the other side of the country. She just like, oh,
3:51
Speaker 1: I see y'all got snow in Atlanta. We haven't gotten
3:53
Speaker 1: any yet, Like, wow, the whole nation is watching Atlanta
3:57
Speaker 1: and excite it for us. Thank you. I appreciate it.
4:00
Speaker 1: Don't know if you' all saw the shenanigans on online
4:03
Speaker 1: or on the news, but I mean if you haven't,
4:06
Speaker 1: you will probably get a good kick out of that.
4:08
Speaker 3: I think my TikTok was flooded with Atlanta snow content
4:13
Speaker 3: and most of the people going this is why Atlanta
4:16
Speaker 3: can't have snow, and everybody doing something really ridiculous, like
4:19
Speaker 3: a lot of people like.
4:20
Speaker 1: Skiing down streets.
4:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, we saw lots of that, people trying to slid
4:24
Speaker 3: and they weren't really bad at it, like so many
4:27
Speaker 3: things people doing like yeah, well, I was trying to
4:30
Speaker 3: skip that one because I like that it's not something
4:32
Speaker 3: we want to celebrate.
4:33
Speaker 1: But they were having a good time.
4:35
Speaker 3: But my favorite part is seeing people's reaction and being like,
4:38
Speaker 3: good for you. This is nice to be excited about
4:41
Speaker 3: something we hate, like like people from New York and
4:44
Speaker 3: Canada being like, nah, we don't do this, but I
4:47
Speaker 3: love seeing that joy in you. So it felt like
4:50
Speaker 3: a good little reprieve with all the chaos in the world,
4:53
Speaker 3: especially in that our country with the very very different
4:57
Speaker 3: climate experiences happening and I'm not allowed at that I'm
5:00
Speaker 3: just saying, like it's such a vast difference that you
5:02
Speaker 3: can't forget too much. But like it's it's been people
5:06
Speaker 3: like saying it's been a nice for them to who
5:09
Speaker 3: are not even in this area to experience the snow
5:12
Speaker 3: and excitement to see people find joy in moments like this.
5:16
Speaker 3: Uh but yeah, but my New Year's I just realized
5:20
Speaker 3: that we were just all in the point of being
5:23
Speaker 3: the adults who are like, we don't do that anymore.
5:25
Speaker 1: Maybe it was COVID, maybe it is age.
5:27
Speaker 3: I don't know, but going out seems ridiculous that I
5:30
Speaker 3: don't know anybody who actually went out outside of like
5:33
Speaker 3: a small get together with their own little crew. I
5:36
Speaker 3: don't I haven't seen many of that, even to the
5:38
Speaker 3: point that I wasn't even advertised about events and before
5:42
Speaker 3: I would get advertisements like this event is happening, this
5:44
Speaker 3: place is happening, they're doing this. I didn't get any
5:46
Speaker 3: of that.
5:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, Yeah, there's usually like some sort of some
5:51
Speaker 1: sort of some sort of get together happening on some rooftop, right,
5:55
Speaker 1: some sort of party.
5:56
Speaker 3: Reserved for this. You want you're not gonna want to
5:58
Speaker 3: miss the countdown for the see any.
6:00
Speaker 1: We're tired, we're tired. We're all tired, apparently, but.
6:04
Speaker 3: It was nice to not do things.
6:05
Speaker 1: And I went to bed immediately at twelve fifteen. I'm
6:08
Speaker 1: pretty sure.
6:12
Speaker 2: Oh well, I have to say I was very I'm very,
6:18
Speaker 2: very excited to talk about the person we're talking about today,
6:21
Speaker 2: because just by the like headlines I saw alone, I
6:24
Speaker 2: was like, oh my gosh. But before we get into that,
6:28
Speaker 2: I want to ask, I know Samantha's thoughts about this,
6:31
Speaker 2: how are you with plants?
6:34
Speaker 1: So as a caretaker? Is that what you're asking? Horrible
6:38
Speaker 1: horrible not plant mom, whatever, this whole millennial plant parent
6:42
Speaker 1: thing is, I'm not part of the crew. I killed them,
6:46
Speaker 1: and I've had I have family members who are really
6:48
Speaker 1: sable good at it, but plants. I didn't grow up
6:51
Speaker 1: around plants either, so unfortunately, house plants or you know,
6:55
Speaker 1: I didn't do any farming, tending to gardens, anything like that.
6:58
Speaker 1: My mom did a little bit of that, but not
7:00
Speaker 1: in a really major way, so I didn't have that
7:02
Speaker 1: as part of my natural inclination. And I've tried to
7:06
Speaker 1: be a houseplant parent, and I've had people give me
7:08
Speaker 1: plants and I do care for them like I have
7:11
Speaker 1: feelings for them, but those feelings just don't actually pan
7:14
Speaker 1: out to actually equally care. So you know, just I
7:19
Speaker 1: have no plants now, so that now that i've you know,
7:21
Speaker 1: i've I lived on the road, I've gotten rid of
7:24
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff recently. I don't really have any
7:26
Speaker 1: of my own plants right now. So I'm bad with plants.
7:29
Speaker 1: Love to look at them, love to be in them,
7:32
Speaker 1: love to frolic in them, love to smell them, all
7:35
Speaker 1: of that, I admire them from a distance. You have
7:38
Speaker 1: feelings for them. I really like that term. That's that's good.
7:41
Speaker 1: That's good I do because you know, they're dramatic. And
7:45
Speaker 1: so when I would have when I had them, and
7:47
Speaker 1: they would just be passing out every night, and I'm like, Okay,
7:51
Speaker 1: I get that I'm not a good plant parent, but
7:53
Speaker 1: do you can you give me a little credit, just a.
7:56
Speaker 3: Little bit over? Do we really have to be that
8:00
Speaker 3: melodramatic here?
8:01
Speaker 1: I get it.
8:01
Speaker 3: You have had too much water and I've done too much.
8:03
Speaker 1: I get it, right, Like, I can't. I've already I've
8:07
Speaker 1: already chosen the hardiest plants. I can't, like, I don't
8:11
Speaker 1: need to water you that much of your sting like this,
8:13
Speaker 1: so because I'm not you know, I can't do the
8:15
Speaker 1: delicate plants if it has a colorful flower on it
8:18
Speaker 1: and count.
8:18
Speaker 3: Me over count well, then you foind out that the
8:21
Speaker 3: colorful flowers is the death blue.
8:26
Speaker 1: This is good, you pretty, but that's not supposed to happen.
8:30
Speaker 3: Use I have learned in the midst of like people
8:31
Speaker 3: trying to get me to be a plant person and
8:34
Speaker 3: I'm like, why are you setting me up till and
8:36
Speaker 3: then they set it up with these are hard to
8:38
Speaker 3: kill and then I'm like, watch me.
8:40
Speaker 1: It's like it's really nice either. It's really nice to
8:44
Speaker 1: be around people who do know a lot about plants,
8:46
Speaker 1: like the intimate knowledge that they have of just little
8:49
Speaker 1: tricks that they have. I was around somebody who gardens
8:52
Speaker 1: recently and he was just telling me to like, put
8:55
Speaker 1: a banana peel in your plant water, and I was like,
8:58
Speaker 1: I have no idea. That's the easy. That's something easy
9:01
Speaker 1: that I can understand. Don't ask me about the chemistry
9:04
Speaker 1: because I haven't gotten to that point yet. But you know,
9:07
Speaker 1: I appreciate that the level of knowledge that people people
9:11
Speaker 1: have about plants, and I am interested in herbalism as well.
9:14
Speaker 1: So I you know, they're they're intersecting interests that I
9:17
Speaker 1: have that I just haven't been able to delve into yet.
9:20
Speaker 1: Well maybe in the new year, new you. Amy, don't
9:25
Speaker 1: try to add to anything. I've got a lot of
9:29
Speaker 1: stuff going on, and you know me, if I do,
9:32
Speaker 1: you might tempt me. I might be like, maybe I
9:35
Speaker 1: do need to learn how to do this thing.
9:39
Speaker 2: I did not didn't mean to set some kind of trap.
9:41
Speaker 1: I really did.
9:54
Speaker 2: Well. I am so so excited to talk about this
9:58
Speaker 2: story of the person brought today.
10:00
Speaker 1: Eves. Who are we talking about today? We're talking about
10:03
Speaker 1: Inez Mehia. She was the first, so we're talking about
10:06
Speaker 1: plants because she was the first Mexican American woman botanist,
10:10
Speaker 1: and she was the first botanist to collect plants and
10:12
Speaker 1: was now Denali National Park. So she know far what
10:18
Speaker 1: I'm saying about myself and how I am with plants.
10:20
Speaker 1: That was not her. So she wasn't necessarily a gardener,
10:24
Speaker 1: but she did know a lot about plants. She collected
10:27
Speaker 1: a lot of plants, She had her hands on a
10:28
Speaker 1: lot of plants. She she studied a lot of plants.
10:30
Speaker 1: So she I too, Annie was excited. I figured y'all
10:34
Speaker 1: might be excited as well because of the all the
10:37
Speaker 1: science that is involved in her particular chosen field and
10:43
Speaker 1: how cool she was too. Like this intersection of person
10:46
Speaker 1: that she is is just my kind of person, because
10:50
Speaker 1: I love outdoor stuff. I love stuff that's related to nature.
10:55
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just that, like Inez Mahia actually went
10:59
Speaker 1: on of these fantastic travels where she was like very
11:05
Speaker 1: sufficient in the way that she was interacting with the world.
11:09
Speaker 1: She was spending time outside and had lots of like
11:12
Speaker 1: outdoor skill that I appreciated with help from other people
11:15
Speaker 1: around her, of course, which is something we'll talk about
11:18
Speaker 1: when we get there. But yeah, I'm excited too. I'm
11:20
Speaker 1: excited to talk about her. Yeah.
11:23
Speaker 2: And she's also such a great story of someone like
11:27
Speaker 2: kind of later in life being like, you know what,
11:29
Speaker 2: I want to do this and I love that. So
11:33
Speaker 2: shall we get into the history.
11:35
Speaker 1: Yes. So her name was enez Enriquetta Julieta Mehia, and
11:40
Speaker 1: she was born on May twenty fourth, eighteen seventy, in Washington, DC.
11:44
Speaker 1: So she came from a kind of well off background.
11:48
Speaker 1: Her father was General Enrique A Mehia, who was a
11:51
Speaker 1: Mexican diplomat under President Benito Juarez, and her mother was
11:56
Speaker 1: Sarah Wilmer Mehia, and they had some family history in
12:03
Speaker 1: the Roman Catholic community in Baltimore, and she also had
12:08
Speaker 1: other siblings from a previous marriage, but they weren't in Washington,
12:12
Speaker 1: DC that long. When Inez was around one, they moved
12:16
Speaker 1: to Mahea, Texas, and that town was based on the
12:20
Speaker 1: family name. It was on land that they had that
12:23
Speaker 1: the family gave to Texas. And she mostly kept to
12:27
Speaker 1: herself as a child, So I don't think there's not
12:30
Speaker 1: a ton about her that she wrote as a child,
12:33
Speaker 1: or that her family wrote about her as a child,
12:36
Speaker 1: at least from my understanding. But from what I've seen,
12:41
Speaker 1: she is depicted as a pretty shy child. Like she was.
12:47
Speaker 1: She kept to herself, She didn't go out and hang
12:49
Speaker 1: out with people a lot. She was pretty isolated and
12:56
Speaker 1: just introverted, seemingly. But she was close to her own
13:00
Speaker 1: older sister, adel and they did do some gatherings and
13:04
Speaker 1: had outings together when they were young, and Ines was
13:08
Speaker 1: interested in reading and spending time outside. She started school,
13:13
Speaker 1: but in eighteen seventy nine her parents separated and Enrique
13:18
Speaker 1: went to Mexico and Inez, her mother and her sister
13:22
Speaker 1: went to Philly, and Inez went to a private school
13:26
Speaker 1: and boarding schools in Philly and in Maryland and in Toronto.
13:31
Speaker 1: So she moved a lot, and she wrote letters back
13:35
Speaker 1: to her dad, who was in Mexico. But when she
13:38
Speaker 1: finished school in the late eighteen eighties, she went to
13:41
Speaker 1: Mexico City to live with her dad, and she ended
13:44
Speaker 1: up assisting on the ranch that her father owned, and
13:49
Speaker 1: in the process found out that she had other siblings
13:52
Speaker 1: from her father's side, Although I don't think they were
13:56
Speaker 1: she was super close with the siblings on that side,
13:59
Speaker 1: and her dad did end up dying sometime around eighteen
14:03
Speaker 1: ninety six, I believe, and at that point Es took
14:07
Speaker 1: over the ranching business. So just a reminder, she was
14:12
Speaker 1: born in eighteen seventy, so at this point, this is
14:15
Speaker 1: already about twenty six or so years later, so this
14:18
Speaker 1: is around the age she is. In eighteen ninety eight,
14:21
Speaker 1: she married a man named Herman Lawa, and they lived
14:24
Speaker 1: on a ranch that she inherited there near Mexico City.
14:29
Speaker 1: He died in nineteen oh four. They had been married
14:32
Speaker 1: for about seven years, and she stayed on the ranch.
14:36
Speaker 1: She ran the business Okay, so we're in this first
14:39
Speaker 1: part of her life. You know, she's she's lived a
14:43
Speaker 1: lot of life already and running this ranching business. So
14:47
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh eight, Inez married Augustine Deregatas, but it
14:53
Speaker 1: didn't seem to be that. It wasn't that happy of
14:57
Speaker 1: a marriage, like the marriage wasn't doing super well, and
15:03
Speaker 1: she I don't really fully know what happened. What I've
15:08
Speaker 1: seen it explained as is a mental quote unquote breakdown.
15:12
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. I mean, people have
15:14
Speaker 1: used that terminology, which is pretty problematic terminology in a
15:19
Speaker 1: lot of instances. So I wish I knew further details
15:24
Speaker 1: of what a quote unquote mental breakdown meant for Inez.
15:27
Speaker 1: At the time, she was hurting in some way, it's all.
15:33
Speaker 1: It's all that I know, and her mental capacity was
15:36
Speaker 1: hurt by whatever situation she was going through. However, she
15:40
Speaker 1: was processing things and that affected where she wanted to
15:44
Speaker 1: be and how she wanted to be in her marriage.
15:47
Speaker 1: And so a doctor told her to leave Mexico because
15:50
Speaker 1: it would help her mental health, and she ended up
15:52
Speaker 1: going to a psychiatrist named doctor Philip King Brown in California.
15:57
Speaker 1: And this is when psychiatry was pretty new wish of
16:01
Speaker 1: a field, but she sought help from this doctor in
16:06
Speaker 1: California and she and her husband they lived for a
16:09
Speaker 1: little while in a hotel, then in an apartment, but
16:13
Speaker 1: her husband went back to Mexico seemingly at her encouragement.
16:18
Speaker 1: She wanted him to manage the ranch, even though he
16:21
Speaker 1: didn't really want to be there, but she wanted him
16:24
Speaker 1: to be there, and you know, she was still dealing
16:31
Speaker 1: with her mental illness there. So she wrote to doctor
16:35
Speaker 1: Brown a lot, but he didn't really want her to
16:40
Speaker 1: become attached to seeing him as a patient. So they
16:43
Speaker 1: were working together quite a bit, and he basically said, look,
16:47
Speaker 1: you need to go take some classes. I think it'll
16:49
Speaker 1: help you. And that's how she became interested in painting
16:52
Speaker 1: and photography and she wrote stories and articles as well.
16:57
Speaker 1: So I feel like this is really nice to see
17:00
Speaker 1: because she was the help that she was getting worked,
17:06
Speaker 1: which is it. Well, I can't say it worked per se.
17:10
Speaker 1: What I can say is that it seemingly helped her,
17:13
Speaker 1: like process, whatever she was going through, and his instruction
17:18
Speaker 1: and his guidance seemed to have helped her, which is
17:22
Speaker 1: nice to see that, Like she went to this doctor
17:25
Speaker 1: to get help, and he actually helped her. And also
17:29
Speaker 1: part of that help was her being able to spend
17:31
Speaker 1: time in a hobby that was directly related to her healing.
17:37
Speaker 1: Like so it wasn't like, Okay, like go do this
17:41
Speaker 1: thing because there's some sort of ulterior motive for it,
17:45
Speaker 1: or it's necessarily because you need to be learning because
17:47
Speaker 1: you need some sort of skill, or women should be
17:49
Speaker 1: doing this. It wasn't about that. It was like, Okay,
17:52
Speaker 1: go do this thing. I'm encouraging you to go do
17:54
Speaker 1: this thing for the sake of your healing, and through
17:58
Speaker 1: that healing process is how she if I found the
18:00
Speaker 1: thing that she wanted to be dedicated to that was
18:02
Speaker 1: part of her purpose for the rest of her life.
18:05
Speaker 1: Which I think it's pretty it's really nice. It's like
18:09
Speaker 1: kind of a very sweet point I feel like in
18:12
Speaker 1: a life story, because so many times things that can
18:15
Speaker 1: inspire people, these people who have all these pioneering achievements
18:18
Speaker 1: might not necessarily be the brightest thing. It might be
18:22
Speaker 1: some sort of catastrophe that happened. It might be born
18:26
Speaker 1: and bred out of difficulty, and in this case it is.
18:29
Speaker 1: But it's nice to see that this kind of developed
18:32
Speaker 1: her interest in her profession kind of developed naturally around
18:36
Speaker 1: some of the things she was doing for leisure for
18:38
Speaker 1: her own healing. And I say that as a person
18:40
Speaker 1: who you know is very invested in healing and yoga
18:44
Speaker 1: and that. So it just feels kind of to me
18:47
Speaker 1: like a testimony that when you take the time to
18:49
Speaker 1: pause and you're taking the time to do this healing,
18:51
Speaker 1: you're not forcing things to happen. Then in some instances,
18:55
Speaker 1: and in this case, you know, she was led into
18:58
Speaker 1: a direction that felt really feeling to her. So this
19:01
Speaker 1: at this point in nineteen seventeen is when she joined
19:04
Speaker 1: the Sierra Club and she went to Yosemite National Park
19:09
Speaker 1: and other places in the Sierra Nevada. She was able
19:13
Speaker 1: to be introduced to the outdoor world and the natural
19:16
Speaker 1: world through her participation with the Sierra Club. She didn't
19:22
Speaker 1: want to go back to Mexico, so she was really
19:25
Speaker 1: loving it. She was like, Okay, I'll be healed, I'm
19:28
Speaker 1: exploring nature, I'm meeting people. I'm a brand new woman.
19:31
Speaker 1: And she didn't want to go back to Mexico, and
19:35
Speaker 1: her husband was bankrupting the ranch in the meantime, so
19:39
Speaker 1: they separated and she sold the ranch, and she continued
19:46
Speaker 1: to hike and camp with the Sierra Club and experts
19:50
Speaker 1: would come to talk about wildlife and history, and her
19:55
Speaker 1: interest in nature was then from henceforth, you know, ignited.
20:01
Speaker 1: She really enjoyed being in the redwoods in northern California.
20:06
Speaker 1: And just a moment to acknowledge right now what we're
20:10
Speaker 1: going through, because I know we're talking about this in
20:11
Speaker 1: January twenty twenty five. The wildfires have been happening, are
20:15
Speaker 1: still happening in California. This history that Ines Mehia is
20:19
Speaker 1: related to is more so focused in northern California. But
20:26
Speaker 1: I mean, I figure this is a very complex topic.
20:30
Speaker 1: There has been natural destruction in California for a long
20:33
Speaker 1: time in many different ways. There have been many people
20:39
Speaker 1: Inez and other people included, dedicated to the conservation and
20:42
Speaker 1: preservation history of nature in California. That was another reason
20:48
Speaker 1: that I picked Inez before the wildfires started happening. But
20:53
Speaker 1: it feels pretty prescient to be able to talk about nature,
20:57
Speaker 1: appreciation of nature, but also the work that goes into
21:01
Speaker 1: learning about nature so we can appreciate it better and
21:03
Speaker 1: so that it continues to exist in the world. So
21:07
Speaker 1: I don't want to go you know, go on or
21:10
Speaker 1: I would be remiss to not mention that the wildfires
21:12
Speaker 1: in California are happening, and if people have resources that
21:15
Speaker 1: they can dedicate in any way to be able to
21:18
Speaker 1: help those efforts, then that would be a great thing
21:21
Speaker 1: to do. But back to you as a story. Yeah,
21:25
Speaker 1: so she hikes and she camps with the Sierra Club,
21:28
Speaker 1: in love with it and enjoying being outside in nature
21:32
Speaker 1: and learning more about it. She joined the Save of
21:34
Speaker 1: the red Woods League, and since the trees were threatened,
21:38
Speaker 1: you know, by the timber industry and earthquakes at the time,
21:42
Speaker 1: she was invested in continuing to protect and uplift this
21:46
Speaker 1: nature that she was being really inspired by. In nineteen
21:50
Speaker 1: twenty one, she enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley
21:53
Speaker 1: as a quote unquote special student, which feels kind of
21:57
Speaker 1: ageous to me. I think that was an actual terminology
22:01
Speaker 1: that was used at the time for people I guess
22:04
Speaker 1: who weren't enrolled in a normal course. And this was
22:06
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty so in general, there weren't a lot of
22:10
Speaker 1: women at this point. She was fifty or so fifty one.
22:14
Speaker 1: She was born in eighteen seventy, so she was around
22:17
Speaker 1: fifty one when she enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley,
22:22
Speaker 1: and in the course of her study, she was introduced
22:25
Speaker 1: to botanical collecting and she started taking more courses in botany.
22:32
Speaker 1: So she didn't go in saying I'm going to study botany.
22:37
Speaker 1: She found that through her course study, which she started
22:40
Speaker 1: in natural history. Yeah, so I really appreciate this as well.
22:46
Speaker 1: In her story of how she was like, I want
22:49
Speaker 1: to study. I'm interested in this, So I'm gonna do
22:52
Speaker 1: something that not a lot of other women my age
22:54
Speaker 1: are doing right now. But it's not necessarily driven by
22:59
Speaker 1: an impetus of other people aren't doing it. Now I'm
23:02
Speaker 1: gonna do it. I'm going to be that person. It
23:04
Speaker 1: was just I'm interested in natural history. It's been enlivened
23:09
Speaker 1: by my experiences that I'm having here in California, so
23:11
Speaker 1: I'm going to go learn about it from other people.
23:15
Speaker 1: So she learns about it from other people, and she
23:18
Speaker 1: meets other people. She went to the California Academy of
23:22
Speaker 1: Sciences in San Francisco, and she met the botanist Alice Eastwood,
23:26
Speaker 1: and Alice became kind of a mentor to enez. Inez
23:30
Speaker 1: went with Alice on some of her collecting trips, and
23:34
Speaker 1: Inez also met Roxanna Stenchville Ferris, who was going to Sinaloa,
23:38
Speaker 1: Mexico with her husband to collect specimens, and Roxanna invited
23:43
Speaker 1: Enez on the trip. Now, the trip didn't work out unfortunately,
23:49
Speaker 1: Apparently Anez didn't like working with the Ferrises, and she
23:54
Speaker 1: left their expedition. Now she decided to go off on
24:00
Speaker 1: her own. This part of her story seems like kind
24:04
Speaker 1: of another inciting incident because as we go forward in
24:10
Speaker 1: her story, we'll see that she really really does like
24:14
Speaker 1: to walk in her own footsteps, like she likes to
24:17
Speaker 1: be off on her own charge. She doesn't seem to
24:20
Speaker 1: be that receptive to having to deal with other people's
24:25
Speaker 1: ways of working. She's like, I gotta do it my way,
24:31
Speaker 1: and that's the way it's going to be. And it
24:34
Speaker 1: seemed like maybe because she had just she was just
24:37
Speaker 1: getting into botany, she was just starting to go on
24:41
Speaker 1: collecting trips is her first time. She realized that early on.
24:48
Speaker 1: So she started traveling in the area around Mazatline on
24:53
Speaker 1: her own and collecting, but she needed a guide, and
24:57
Speaker 1: a local helped her out. And this is the point
25:00
Speaker 1: where I want to mention go back to the idea
25:06
Speaker 1: that she went off on her own, because I've seen
25:10
Speaker 1: it a lot where they talk about her having solo
25:13
Speaker 1: collecting trips, Like if anybody is listening to this and
25:16
Speaker 1: they want to go do more research on Ninez Mahia.
25:20
Speaker 1: A lot of times I see them say solo collecting trip,
25:23
Speaker 1: like her first solo collecting trips. And one thing that
25:25
Speaker 1: kind of tripped me up about that is that she
25:27
Speaker 1: was always working with guides, So I get that she's
25:30
Speaker 1: on her own. It's not necessarily something that is a
25:33
Speaker 1: part of a larger expedition. Necessarily sometimes I mean it
25:38
Speaker 1: is under the auspices or the promise of compensation for
25:45
Speaker 1: her specimens from institutions. But like there's this, I feel
25:51
Speaker 1: like it is a misnomer to call them solo trips,
25:54
Speaker 1: is all I want to say. So, Yes, she's totally adventurous.
25:58
Speaker 1: Yes she's totally capable. Yes, she seemed to be very
26:01
Speaker 1: independent of a person in the way that she thought,
26:03
Speaker 1: in the way that she chose to go out to places,
26:06
Speaker 1: like she was very pioneering in what she chose to
26:08
Speaker 1: go after. However, I wouldn't call them solo because everywhere
26:13
Speaker 1: she went, she was not familiar with those areas. It
26:16
Speaker 1: was her first time in those areas, and she needed
26:18
Speaker 1: a local to help her out. So these were definitely
26:22
Speaker 1: group efforts. So though, in her collecting efforts, she ended
26:27
Speaker 1: up falling over a cliff, y'all. And I'm sorry, it
26:30
Speaker 1: is not funny. It's not funny, but I mean, just
26:34
Speaker 1: imagine the dedication of somebody's you know, there's a cliff
26:37
Speaker 1: there and I really have to I have to get
26:40
Speaker 1: to this specimen. I'm really invested in collecting it, and
26:43
Speaker 1: I fall over. It's like a movie moment. It's a
26:45
Speaker 1: total movie moment. And falling over a cliff for you
26:49
Speaker 1: to because you're going to your highest heights to be
26:51
Speaker 1: able to do what you're doing. She ended up breaking
26:54
Speaker 1: some ribs and injuring her hand, and fortunately she wasn't
26:59
Speaker 1: too badly. You know, this didn't stop her from continuing
27:02
Speaker 1: in her collecting journey. This isn't the end of her story, y'all,
27:05
Speaker 1: like many more years.
27:06
Speaker 3: Okay, right, sorry, no, this is not.
27:13
Speaker 1: The literal finger. So she had to go back to California.
27:20
Speaker 1: But she had collected about five hundred species, and one
27:24
Speaker 1: of them that she collected was the first to be
27:26
Speaker 1: named after her, and Mimosa mehie, somebody's probably going to
27:33
Speaker 1: correct me. That knows a lot more about Latin terminology
27:37
Speaker 1: that I than I do. But the she she would
27:42
Speaker 1: go on to have many other secimens named after her.
27:46
Speaker 1: But anyway, the collecting process itself, just a little bit
27:49
Speaker 1: about what she actually had to go through could be difficult.
27:51
Speaker 1: So she had to hike. She had to travel in
27:53
Speaker 1: canoes and boats, she had to ride horses because the
27:56
Speaker 1: places she was going was remote. Obviously she needed some
28:00
Speaker 1: sort of transportation to get from one place to another.
28:03
Speaker 1: And it was also expensive because she had to have
28:06
Speaker 1: equipment on her and she had to carry that around
28:08
Speaker 1: with her. She had to carry a dryer and a
28:11
Speaker 1: plant press for her specimens, and she had to bring
28:15
Speaker 1: a camera, a compass, and other items for general survival.
28:18
Speaker 1: So I am thinking, I mean, I've backpacked, you know,
28:22
Speaker 1: I've camped to understand what it's like to carry things
28:25
Speaker 1: on your back and be like going for miles and
28:29
Speaker 1: then having to sleep wherever you are. But imagine just
28:33
Speaker 1: having your gear for survival, but then on top of that,
28:35
Speaker 1: you also have to carry your equipment that you have
28:39
Speaker 1: to have for your job. Which is also heavy, so
28:42
Speaker 1: she had pack animals and a lot of times she
28:44
Speaker 1: had you know, her guides with her as well. But
28:47
Speaker 1: that doesn't make it less of a difficult and arduous
28:50
Speaker 1: process because she's doing something that's physically intense in her hiking,
28:54
Speaker 1: and she's she's got a goal in collecting all these
28:58
Speaker 1: specimens which she has to dry and take back with her.
29:01
Speaker 1: So she had to go through that in her collecting process.
29:09
Speaker 1: And when she went out on her first trip, that
29:13
Speaker 1: kind of didn't start as part of that exhibition. That
29:16
Speaker 1: expedition that we just talked about, Inez got several herbariums
29:20
Speaker 1: in natural history institutes to pay or agree to pay
29:23
Speaker 1: her twenty cents per specimen, and in August nineteen twenty
29:28
Speaker 1: six she left San Francisco and she soon arrived and Sinaloa.
29:32
Speaker 1: She hired a guy named Mauro and they packed the
29:37
Speaker 1: plants and had to press them to dry them. And
29:42
Speaker 1: there are some notes that she took about her travels,
29:46
Speaker 1: documenting the specimens that she was collecting and the nature
29:53
Speaker 1: that she was seeing along the way, and she said
29:55
Speaker 1: the wild fig tree Ficus mexicanomic here grows to huge
29:59
Speaker 1: purport as the green fruit hung high, Maro deftly lassoed
30:04
Speaker 1: some fruiting branches. For me, appreciate that instance of her
30:11
Speaker 1: talking about the guide and clearly how he's used to
30:14
Speaker 1: the terrain because it's his area and he knows how
30:19
Speaker 1: to interact with the nature. He knows how to get
30:23
Speaker 1: the fruit from it. However, she documented her own prejudices
30:29
Speaker 1: toward Indigenous people in more than one instance. But in
30:34
Speaker 1: one instance, for example, she wrote about how she didn't
30:37
Speaker 1: want to guard because it was recommended that she had
30:40
Speaker 1: a guard for where she was going. She said, I
30:43
Speaker 1: would feel as though I were underguard, But I am
30:46
Speaker 1: terribly intrigued with the idea of the Indians and the mountains.
30:51
Speaker 1: They are not savage Indians like the Yaquis, just shy
30:55
Speaker 1: and afraid of strangers. So this was a sentiment that
30:59
Speaker 1: came up with her more than once about her thinking
31:02
Speaker 1: about Native Americans and Indigenous people in a in a
31:07
Speaker 1: way as if there were savages, he was expecting to
31:09
Speaker 1: be them to be savages, and when they weren't that
31:12
Speaker 1: was a surprise for her. That seemed like that was
31:15
Speaker 1: an abnormality. So she definitely exhibited her prejudices in her
31:21
Speaker 1: writing as well, but she continued to go on more
31:24
Speaker 1: collecting trips. She hired locals to help her. She talked
31:28
Speaker 1: about more of her guides in Mexico. She talked about how,
31:33
Speaker 1: in one instance, it was one of her guys named Jose,
31:36
Speaker 1: how he could get along in the dark much better
31:38
Speaker 1: that she could. She was like, I could keep up
31:40
Speaker 1: with him in the daytime, but like you know, at
31:44
Speaker 1: a certain point in the dark, he would get really
31:46
Speaker 1: ahead of me and she would he would have to
31:48
Speaker 1: wait a long time on her. So she documented her
31:51
Speaker 1: difficulties and like the physical strenuousness of what she was doing.
31:56
Speaker 1: She ended up going to Alaska in nineteen twenty eight
31:59
Speaker 1: when the British Museum of Natural History funded a trip
32:02
Speaker 1: for her to go there. She went with the young
32:04
Speaker 1: botanist named Frances Paine, but another situation in which she
32:09
Speaker 1: was like, I think I need to do this on
32:10
Speaker 1: my own because she's slow me down. So she kind
32:15
Speaker 1: of left France's pain behind, and she was venturing into
32:18
Speaker 1: places where botanical collection hadn't yet occurred in her in
32:25
Speaker 1: this way of collecting, like, who's to say it, there
32:27
Speaker 1: were indigenous people already collecting plants there, but in this
32:31
Speaker 1: way of documenting specimens. It hadn't occurred, and most of
32:37
Speaker 1: the time it was just her and her pack dogs
32:39
Speaker 1: and rain, cold temperatures, wind and fragile plants really made
32:44
Speaker 1: the collection process that was already a hard thing even harder,
32:48
Speaker 1: and an Alaskan had to rescue her from her campsite
32:51
Speaker 1: when she got lost because of heavy snow on September twelfth.
32:54
Speaker 1: I saw a quote of hers later on where she says,
32:58
Speaker 1: I never got lost. Sure if I included that in
33:01
Speaker 1: this conversation, but I thought back about this situation, I'm like,
33:05
Speaker 1: I feel like this counts as you getting lost lost laws.
33:10
Speaker 1: But it was because that specific quote that I saw
33:13
Speaker 1: was it seemed to be a response to people saying,
33:16
Speaker 1: while you're doing all this on your own as a woman,
33:18
Speaker 1: this is the thing that other women don't do. And
33:20
Speaker 1: she's like, you know, I never got lost. I never
33:22
Speaker 1: did this. It wasn't that difficult for me. But she
33:25
Speaker 1: clearly had challenges. You know, this was difficult to range.
33:28
Speaker 1: She was just up to the challenge. It was. It
33:31
Speaker 1: was challenges that she was willing to go go through.
33:36
Speaker 1: But she met Nina Floyd Bracelin in nineteen twenty seven
33:41
Speaker 1: at the University of California, and they started working together
33:44
Speaker 1: and their relationship was very key in Inez's legacy because
33:49
Speaker 1: Inez would collect and Nina was short in process, so
33:52
Speaker 1: Inez wasn't really into the short in processing situation. She
33:55
Speaker 1: would go into the field. She was a field worker.
33:58
Speaker 1: She would go in and she would collect the plants,
34:00
Speaker 1: but she didn't do the sorting and the processing afterwards.
34:03
Speaker 1: So it was a pretty handy relationship. And Nina will
34:07
Speaker 1: also handle paperwork and raising money, so the adventures are numerous.
34:14
Speaker 1: Nina spent time living collecting in Brazil. She traveled up
34:19
Speaker 1: to Amazon, she went to Peru. She hired porters and
34:23
Speaker 1: canoe people, guides, hunters, she met native folks and she
34:27
Speaker 1: brought them small gifts along the way, like fish hooks.
34:31
Speaker 1: And when she was traveling up the Amazon, she has
34:33
Speaker 1: you can read about how she was on the raft
34:35
Speaker 1: and they went through like whirlpools and they got shot
34:38
Speaker 1: out one way and it was hard for them to
34:40
Speaker 1: get to the banks of the Amazon because rafts aren't
34:43
Speaker 1: very navigable, like they're not that you can't really handle
34:46
Speaker 1: them that well. I mean, don't ask me about it.
34:49
Speaker 1: I've been in a kayak and I've had I'm not
34:52
Speaker 1: let's just put it this way. I'm not the biggest
34:54
Speaker 1: fan of kayaking, and I can't imagine what it would
34:58
Speaker 1: be like being on a raft in these conditions. But
35:00
Speaker 1: she was guided by capable hands. Even in capable hands,
35:03
Speaker 1: nature can be unpredictable. So and has ended up going
35:07
Speaker 1: all over South America over the rest of her life,
35:10
Speaker 1: you know, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, collecting plants dedicated to
35:16
Speaker 1: her mission, and she did gain notoriety for her work.
35:19
Speaker 1: She was invited to speak about it. She kept writing
35:23
Speaker 1: to that doctor we talked about earlier in the episode
35:25
Speaker 1: who helped her out. Who his name was, doctor Philip
35:29
Speaker 1: King Brown. She kept writing to him, and she told
35:33
Speaker 1: a news reporter in nineteen thirty seven, this is a quote,
35:38
Speaker 1: so I do have it. So the quote was, I
35:42
Speaker 1: don't think there's any place in the world where a
35:44
Speaker 1: woman can't venture alone. In all my travels, I've never
35:47
Speaker 1: been attacked by a wild animal. Lost my way are
35:51
Speaker 1: called a disease. Okay, So I guess technically, ain't you
35:57
Speaker 1: know how to great bad? I feel like a little
36:00
Speaker 1: shaky on the lost thing, So maybe she didn't make
36:03
Speaker 1: it to her campsite, but she had to be pulled out.
36:06
Speaker 3: She made it out. Maybe that's what she meant.
36:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe that's true. Yeah. So she said though that
36:15
Speaker 1: now that after now that I'm back, after more than
36:18
Speaker 1: two years in the whiles of South America, I find
36:20
Speaker 1: myself longing for a nice, quiet jungle again, she said
36:23
Speaker 1: at one point. And I just wanted to include that
36:25
Speaker 1: quote because she liked the experience of being in the wilderness.
36:32
Speaker 1: It wasn't It was clear that she was drawn to
36:34
Speaker 1: it because she spent she spent years on collecting expeditions,
36:39
Speaker 1: and she pressed through difficult situations, climbed rock walls, you know,
36:47
Speaker 1: went through she had her guys cut through, like used
36:50
Speaker 1: a machete to cut through bramble for her, got back
36:54
Speaker 1: later than anticipated to sites that they needed to get through.
36:57
Speaker 1: You know, she went through. There were a lot of
37:01
Speaker 1: physical challenges along the way, and that was what filled
37:06
Speaker 1: her up. That was what filled her cup. She really
37:08
Speaker 1: loved being there. So it's nice to see her reflect
37:14
Speaker 1: on just that, the good time that she had when
37:21
Speaker 1: she was outdoors. You know, it was about the collecting,
37:24
Speaker 1: of course, it was about the science, but she was
37:27
Speaker 1: actually enjoying what she was doing, and she did do
37:31
Speaker 1: more adventuring and collecting in Mexico. Once again. Later in
37:39
Speaker 1: her life, she injured herself in a fall. I think
37:41
Speaker 1: she slipped when she was going across the river, a
37:43
Speaker 1: crossing rocks something like that. She did end up recovering
37:47
Speaker 1: enough to keep exploring, but she was feeling more periods
37:50
Speaker 1: of sickness and weakness, and she had to head back
37:53
Speaker 1: to the United States. In May of nineteen thirty eight.
37:57
Speaker 1: She made it back to San Francisco, but she was
38:00
Speaker 1: diagnosed with lung cancer. It seemed to have come on
38:03
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, like she realized she was sick, went back quickly,
38:07
Speaker 1: was diagnosed quickly, and she died on July twelfth, nineteen
38:11
Speaker 1: thirty eight. In her well, she gave money to the
38:25
Speaker 1: California Academy of Sciences were her long time you know collaborator,
38:30
Speaker 1: Nina Bracelin, who's also called Bracy, so she could keep
38:34
Speaker 1: working at the California Academy of Sciences on Yez's collections
38:41
Speaker 1: and on other plant collections. So she allowed her money
38:44
Speaker 1: helped fund Nina to be able to continue working. She
38:47
Speaker 1: also gave money to save the Red Woods League and
38:50
Speaker 1: the Sierra Club, which we've already talked about. She was
38:53
Speaker 1: dedicated to before, so makes sense that she gave them money.
38:56
Speaker 1: And she had collected about one hundred and forty five
39:02
Speaker 1: thousand specimens, maybe more I've seen I've seen more. It's
39:05
Speaker 1: said that she collected one hundred and forty five thousand
39:08
Speaker 1: to one hundred and fifty thousand around that amount of specimens,
39:12
Speaker 1: even though she never formally described any plants herself. She
39:14
Speaker 1: didn't collect that many, and there are plants named after her,
39:17
Speaker 1: and many of her photos are in the archives at
39:19
Speaker 1: the California Academy of Sciences, and there is if anybody
39:26
Speaker 1: is interested in reading an oral history about her, there
39:31
Speaker 1: is one in the z Mahia Botanical Collections at the
39:34
Speaker 1: University of California, Berkeley that people can access. They were
39:38
Speaker 1: connected in nineteen sixty five. In nineteen sixty seven by
39:40
Speaker 1: Annetta Carter. This is an oral history with Bracy so
39:44
Speaker 1: Nina Floyd Bracelin. This is an an interview with her,
39:49
Speaker 1: and in it you can read the whole thing. But
39:52
Speaker 1: in it she talks about how Es stabbed a grad student.
39:58
Speaker 1: So in the rundown there was a grad student who
40:04
Speaker 1: was essentially teasing ENA's a little bit. They were out
40:07
Speaker 1: for lunch, like eating sandwiches, and Nina said, quote, she
40:12
Speaker 1: reached at her with a great big knife and jabbed
40:15
Speaker 1: her and ruined the stocking, of course, and cut her leg. Afterwards,
40:20
Speaker 1: I said, now listen, this is terrible, and you've got
40:22
Speaker 1: to buy two new pairs of stockings for that girl.
40:26
Speaker 1: She cannot afford this. Look what you've done to her,
40:30
Speaker 1: and it was bleeding. You know, it wasn't too serious
40:34
Speaker 1: end quote. Okay, y'all can continue reading that inter or
40:37
Speaker 1: that part of the interview. But I just think it's
40:42
Speaker 1: it's I don't know if it was just a time
40:44
Speaker 1: or what, but they seemed very concerned about her stockings
40:47
Speaker 1: rather than her legs. Get her two new ones, just
40:52
Speaker 1: two new stockings, No band aids, no bandages, no, no,
40:57
Speaker 1: nothing about wound dressing or anti septics or whatever you
41:00
Speaker 1: call it. And you need to be able to deal
41:01
Speaker 1: with this wound instead, just these by the girl, some stockings.
41:06
Speaker 1: She can't afford this.
41:08
Speaker 3: Those are nice like silk, right like during that time
41:11
Speaker 3: they were expensive.
41:12
Speaker 1: They must have been, Samantha, I say. But to be honest, though,
41:19
Speaker 1: the other thing that stood out to me about this
41:21
Speaker 1: interaction just kind of put in the pieces together about
41:24
Speaker 1: how people have described Ess. They say that she didn't
41:27
Speaker 1: want to be around people, she didn't really like people, seemingly,
41:31
Speaker 1: it's kind of what it said because in this same
41:36
Speaker 1: oral history, Bracy said that in seemed to like her Bracy,
41:41
Speaker 1: she seemed to like her more than other people, so
41:45
Speaker 1: she was like one of the few people that could
41:48
Speaker 1: could handle it up with Yeah, exactly. So I'm wondering
41:53
Speaker 1: about Inez's character and was she kind of a this
41:58
Speaker 1: is me trying to put a character together who I
42:00
Speaker 1: didn't know. But it's like, well, she spent so much
42:04
Speaker 1: time around plants and in the outdoors. She loved plants
42:06
Speaker 1: more than she loved people. Is like, I'm wondering if
42:08
Speaker 1: that's her tagline because she was always leaving people behind,
42:14
Speaker 1: didn't want to go bring other people in expeditions besides
42:17
Speaker 1: the people that she would meet in the locales that
42:19
Speaker 1: she was going to that could help her work. So
42:22
Speaker 1: these were people who were her friends or she met
42:25
Speaker 1: them in the course of her work. I'll say that much.
42:27
Speaker 1: I can't say that they weren't her friends, didn't become
42:29
Speaker 1: her friends. But I'm curious about that part of her personality.
42:35
Speaker 1: And the other thing about this interaction that makes me
42:39
Speaker 1: curious is how calculated it was. Because in the oral history,
42:45
Speaker 1: Bracy said that she wanted it to look like it
42:48
Speaker 1: was Yes's idea to replace the stockings. So she's like,
42:53
Speaker 1: I know that Inez won't of her own volition be
42:57
Speaker 1: like I think I should get the girl some more stockings.
42:59
Speaker 1: She's like, no standing on business. I got stabbed her
43:02
Speaker 1: and I meant it. So Bracy had to be that
43:05
Speaker 1: person who's like, I need to make it look like
43:09
Speaker 1: it's her idea, just to make it better, which is
43:12
Speaker 1: funny but also kind of scary, you know. So anyway,
43:17
Speaker 1: she got readarrested in that if you want to. Inez
43:21
Speaker 1: also published notes from and accounts from her travels and
43:24
Speaker 1: different publications. She was a member of the California Botanical Society,
43:29
Speaker 1: the Sierra Club, the Autobon Association of the Pacific, and
43:32
Speaker 1: other organizations, and you can see her specimen collections. I
43:36
Speaker 1: haven't had the privilege, but you can see our specimen
43:38
Speaker 1: collections at the California Academy of Sciences, and parts of
43:41
Speaker 1: it are duplicated at other institutions in the United States
43:44
Speaker 1: and Europe. And Annezza's papers are at the California Academy
43:48
Speaker 1: Science and in the Berkeley Library at the University of California,
43:52
Speaker 1: So there is other stuff you can see. You can
43:55
Speaker 1: research some of the other specimens she's collected, stuff that's
43:58
Speaker 1: been named after her. But I think it's a pretty
44:01
Speaker 1: cool story. I'm here for adventure. I like to feel
44:05
Speaker 1: like and think that and say that I have an
44:07
Speaker 1: adventure spirit. I love being in the outdoors. I like hiking.
44:12
Speaker 1: I like plants and trees as even though I'm not
44:15
Speaker 1: a good plant parent, I like them. I like you know,
44:19
Speaker 1: So I really enjoyed In as a story. Definitely complexities
44:27
Speaker 1: in there, definitely threads of environmental protection and conservation that
44:32
Speaker 1: are super important, threads of doing whatever you want to
44:36
Speaker 1: do at any point in your life that you want
44:38
Speaker 1: to do, if you want to do it. I mean,
44:40
Speaker 1: there are so many themes and messages that I think
44:43
Speaker 1: are valuable in In as a story. Yes, completely agree.
44:48
Speaker 2: I mean we say it every time, but I don't
44:50
Speaker 2: know why there's not a miniseries.
44:52
Speaker 1: On this woman's life. This is falling off a cliff
44:56
Speaker 1: where I.
44:57
Speaker 3: Can get it at all. Violence and adventure romance and
45:02
Speaker 3: the death of kind.
45:03
Speaker 1: Come on, Yeah, a.
45:04
Speaker 2: Woman who like hates other people but loves plants, Like
45:08
Speaker 2: she had a.
45:08
Speaker 1: Huge turning point.
45:10
Speaker 3: Maybe it was a midlife crisis where he was like,
45:12
Speaker 3: I'm gonna need you to go out because you might
45:14
Speaker 3: have somebody. Yeah, like I wonder, like what you know,
45:18
Speaker 3: but that is kind of the beginning times of like
45:21
Speaker 3: really trying to figure out your life, and like my
45:24
Speaker 3: life is her life was made up of like a
45:26
Speaker 3: ranch that she didn't really want, and I can't imagine
45:28
Speaker 3: being a woman owner of a ranch and like that
45:32
Speaker 3: already sounds kind of like intense and it's in itself,
45:35
Speaker 3: and then being married to people that you don't really
45:37
Speaker 3: want to be married to but you're like, yeah, I
45:38
Speaker 3: did it. I'm here, and then figuring out but I
45:41
Speaker 3: really like these plants and I can go and sit
45:44
Speaker 3: and listen to birds and look and discover new things
45:47
Speaker 3: and just be here. Like that's why it kind of
45:49
Speaker 3: sounds like finding herself. It's like love, prey, eat but
45:52
Speaker 3: not but plants, right.
45:55
Speaker 1: And how that goes movie, by the way, I don't.
45:58
Speaker 3: Even know.
46:07
Speaker 1: I got your point.
46:11
Speaker 2: Well, it's also really fascinating to me. I also feel
46:17
Speaker 2: like I have an adventurous spirit, but I'm a big
46:20
Speaker 2: nerd and like people are still discovering things today, like
46:24
Speaker 2: new plants and new animals. I was reading about a
46:26
Speaker 2: new animal that was discovered yesterday and it was just like,
46:29
Speaker 2: there's still so much to explore and discover and it's.
46:33
Speaker 1: Amazing.
46:34
Speaker 2: The flip side is, of course, the the sad necessity
46:40
Speaker 2: of the preservation part, but like she did so much
46:44
Speaker 2: as staggering how much she did, how many things she found,
46:49
Speaker 2: because I'm someone who I would just be out and
46:51
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know has that been discovered? How
46:53
Speaker 2: well I know that a new obviously I haven't studied it,
46:58
Speaker 2: so that that doesn't help.
47:00
Speaker 1: Honestly, you probably stepped on a plant that was probably
47:03
Speaker 1: very precious at some point.
47:07
Speaker 2: This is this is your revenge for me trying to
47:09
Speaker 2: trick you in being a plant mom.
47:11
Speaker 1: Yeah wow. But the other side of that, too, Annie,
47:17
Speaker 1: is that there are probably specimens gone that she ran
47:20
Speaker 1: across in her collections that no longer exist. I mean,
47:24
Speaker 1: she was in South Americas, in Brazil, she was in Amazon.
47:27
Speaker 1: A lot of that has gone now. Yeah, unfortunately.
47:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm glad it's all you can see it.
47:36
Speaker 2: You can see a lot of it online. There is
47:39
Speaker 2: a I didn't watch it, but I saw that there's
47:41
Speaker 2: a PBS documentary, so there's a lot of stuff about
47:44
Speaker 2: her life. There's still no mini series, unfortunately, but you
47:50
Speaker 2: can find a lot about her, and she just sounds
47:52
Speaker 2: like a fascinating, complex character.
47:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think y'all are right. I think you're right, Samantha.
48:00
Speaker 1: There should be some sort of dramatization, some sort of
48:03
Speaker 1: it's they have all the markers for a great story.
48:07
Speaker 1: You got the inciting incident, you got the turning point,
48:10
Speaker 1: you know, you got the hero's journeys traveling. I mean,
48:13
Speaker 1: come on, yeah, so maybe maybe y'all should y'all should
48:17
Speaker 1: be the ones to champion talking about this every time
48:21
Speaker 1: we have.
48:23
Speaker 3: IV.
48:26
Speaker 1: It's true, it's not our original story at all. That's
48:30
Speaker 1: literally someone's legacy. But no, seriously, it's it's worth covering
48:36
Speaker 1: a lot more. I mean, it's fascinating. It's a fascinating story,
48:41
Speaker 1: really is Wow.
48:45
Speaker 2: I cannot recommend enough listeners go research more. But as always,
48:50
Speaker 2: thank you so much Ease for bringing this this story
48:54
Speaker 2: to us. I had no idea about it, and I
48:55
Speaker 2: love learning about it. And thank you for being here.
48:58
Speaker 2: We always love seeing you you too.
49:00
Speaker 1: I'm glad to be here. Thanks y'all.
49:02
Speaker 2: Where can the good listeners find you?
49:05
Speaker 1: Y'all can find me. The easiest way is to go
49:08
Speaker 1: to my website. That's Eves Jeffcote dot com. If you
49:12
Speaker 1: don't know how to spell that, that's why V E
49:15
Speaker 1: S J E F F C O A T dot com.
49:19
Speaker 1: I'm also on Instagram and not apologizing, And if you
49:23
Speaker 1: go to my bio there you'll also be able to
49:25
Speaker 1: get to my website. You can sign up to my newsletter.
49:28
Speaker 1: From there. You can also get the link directly to
49:31
Speaker 1: a new YouTube channel that I've just started, and you
49:35
Speaker 1: can contact me from there as well. So if any questions, comments, concerns,
49:40
Speaker 1: I would love to hear from you, so let me know.
49:42
Speaker 2: Yes, hero Is do it all the coolest things use
49:47
Speaker 2: sales listeners. Go check all that out if you haven't already.
49:52
Speaker 2: Of course, see all of the past amazing episodes of
49:55
Speaker 2: Female First, all of them worthy of an adaptation.
49:59
Speaker 1: And if you would like to contact does you can.
50:01
Speaker 2: You can email us at Hello at stuff onever Told
50:03
Speaker 2: You dot com or Stuffanie Mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
50:07
Speaker 2: You can find us on Blue Sky at mom Stuff
50:09
Speaker 2: podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff one Never
50:11
Speaker 2: Told You. We have a YouTube page, we have a
50:14
Speaker 2: tea public store, and we have a book you can
50:15
Speaker 2: get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to
50:18
Speaker 2: our super producer Christenior, Executiveroducer, My Incontruder, Joey, thank you,
50:22
Speaker 2: and thanks to you for listening. Stuff Never Told Me
50:24
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50:26
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