Beyond the Scenery

Park News

Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month, honoring female achievements and contributions in our country.

Why March? The commemoration originally began as a local celebration in 1978 in California, centered around March 8^th, International Women’s Day.

In 1980, President Carter pronounced the week encompassing that date as National Women’s History Week. Congress passed a law designating all of March as Women’s History Month in 1987.

         The month is affiliated with other historical events concerning women as well: the first major suffrage march and the formation of the National Woman’s Party, and the signing of Title 9 of the Education Amendments Act, prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational institutions, which furthered women’s sports.

The National Park Service has several sites where women’s achievements are celebrated—it even has a page on traveling to them. One is Ohio’s Dayton Aviation National Historical Park. You’ve heard about Amelia Earhart, but how about Harriet Quimby, the first American woman to earn a pilot’s license, and the first woman to fly across the English Channel, in 1912. Bessie Coleman had to go to France to learn to fly, because aviation schools in the U.S. wouldn’t take Blacks or women in the 1920s. She became the first American to obtain an international pilot’s license. 

And look! Both Earhart and Coleman have their own Lego sets!
How’s that for notoriety?!

Leah Hing also had 2 strikes against her—being a woman and of Asian descent. She managed to learn to fly at Pearson Field, now the site of a museum in Fort Vancouver National Historic Site straddling Oregon and Washington State, the first Asian American to do so.

Jackie Cochran, perhaps the greatest aviator of either sex, won more speed and altitude records than any of her contemporaries, receiving more than 200 awards and trophies. Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier.

Spring is sprung!

Which means it’s time for the National Cherry Blossom Festival on the National Mall. It will be held March 20 through April 12, with peak bloom (70% of the trees in blossom) predicted for late March to early April. Check the National Park Service’s Bloom Watch for updates.

Changes in the Park Service reservation systems

         Three park sites have either done away with or altered their pre-registering policies. At Yosemite and Arches National Parks, a timed entry is no longer needed (but you’re still encouraged to arrive early in the day, especially between May and October, the most popular months for visitors). Glacier National Park has discontinued advance vehicle reservations.   

It’s a Cookbook!

         If you’ve ever been to the Jordan Pond House in Acadia National Park, you might have tasted its popovers. Or perhaps you’d like to sample Buffalo Meatloaf, a specialty at Mount Rainier National Park. Well, now you can!  The National Geographic National Parks Cookbook is out! It contains one hundred recipes from dining venues in the sixty-three Park Service sites called national parks.

(Did anyone recognize the headline as an important quote from the Twilight Zone’s To Serve Man episode?)

A Woman in the “Hall of Faith”

         Some of the people mentioned in Scripture’s “Hall of Faith” (Hebrews chapter 11) are well-known, others not so much. And if you think they’re all “perfect” individuals, think again.

         Since this is Women’s History Month, let me highlight one of the females listed there. Rahab, first mentioned in Joshua 2:1-21, was a Gentile and a prostitute. Joshua sent two Jewish men sent to spy out Canaan, the region God promised to Abraham and his descendants, aka the Promised Land (Joshua 1:1-6), and especially the city-state of Jericho, where Rahab and her family lived. Her house must have served as an inn of some kind, because that’s where the pair lodged.

         Jericho’s king learned of the spies’ mission, and sent word to Rahab to bring the men to him, because he saw them as a threat. But she kept them hidden, and sent word to the king that she had no idea where they were, and perhaps the king should send out soldiers to catch them. And while lying is prohibited (Exodus 20:16, Leviticus 19:11), she misled the king because she had come to believe God had given the Israelites the land, and heard about the miracles He had performed for them. “For the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath,” she testified (2:11).

         In return for the help she gave them, Rahab asked the spies to guarantee she and all her relatives in the house—father, mother, sisters, and brothers—would be spared when the Israelites conquered Jericho. They agreed, saying she should tie a scarlet cord in a window so all the Israelites would know to protect her home. Then she lowered the two men by rope from her window (she lived next to the city’s wall), and instructed them on how to get away.

         About ten days later, after crossing the Jordan River and commemorating it (Joshua chapters 3 and 4), about 40,000 Israelites (Joshua 4:12-13) came to Jericho (chapter 6). Because of where Rahab’s house was situated, she could see what went on outside the wall. I imagine she and her household were nervous knowing what would happen, and also if the spies would keep their promise. When the Isralite warriors marched around Jericho for six days, the tension must have been almost unbearable for them and the entire city.

On the seventh day, the soldiers again paraded around Jericho, then blew seven rams’ horns loudly, followed by a shout from each one of them—and the wall fell flat. The red cord still hung from Rahab’s window, and Joshua instructed the two men who had vowed to spare her and her family to lead them to safety, and she, at least, lived the rest of her life among the Israelites (6:22-25).

Rahab is noted for her faith not only in Hebrews 11:31, but also in James 2:25, as a woman who acted on her beliefs.

But here’s the most amazing part of her story. She’s listed in Jesus’s genealogy in Matthew 1:5, through His earthly father Joseph’s lineage! She was the natural great-great grandma of King David. What an incredible honor!

The lesson here? God uses any faithful person, man or woman, for His ordained purposes. That too is an honor.

  Park News  433! With the addition of a pair of spots established last month, that’s the new number of sites in the National Park Service.  • On December 9, a place I’d mentioned in an earlier blog is now the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in Pennsylvania. This is within the US Army’s Carlisle Barracks, home of the Army War College, and as yet there are no visitor services.  • In Maine is the Frances Perkins National Monument, added December 16, 2024. She was the first woman to hold a federal Cabinet position, serving as Labor Secretary under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She’s considered the “Woman behind the New Deal,” working to enact social welfare laws, including Social Security and the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act creating, among other things, a minimum wage and overtime pay after forty hours of work a week, as well as prohibiting oppressive child labor. After her Cabinet tenure ended, she joined the US Civil Service Commission, then taught Cornell University and other schools until she died in 1965. Her home at the park site is undergoing renovation, and is expected to be ready for visitors by summer. The fifty-seven-acre grounds, open during daylight hours, has walking paths leading past historic farm buildings and the remnants of the family’s brick-making business. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day  This year the celebration falls on Monday, January 20, and as usual, all fees are waived at the 109 Park Service sites that charge an admission. Check out the parks preserving his legacy and the Civil Rights Movement here. They include his home in Atlanta, Alabama’s Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail and Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, and in Washington, DC, the Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorials on the National Mall. Just beware January 20, 2025 may not be the best time to be in DC for sightseeing—there’s a presidential inauguration on the same day… Writing News  I’m working on a new program called Women’s History Sites in Our National Parks. Francis Perkins will be mentioned in it, along with a host of other American women who made history in work, wars, and through sheer willpower. I’ll share more about this project in March, which is Women’s History Month. How Long?  On March 25, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a legendary speech on the steps of Alabama’s state capital, at the end of the momentous Selma to Montgomery march. Speaking of the struggle for racial equality, he concluded, “I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’…I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long…” He went on to say, five times, “How long? Not long,” following the last one with two verses from the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which references Isaiah 63:1–6 and Revelation 14:14–19.  “How long” is a common cry in Scripture. So many biblical people asked when they’d be relieved of persecution, suffering, and misery, and why God delayed action and judgment of evil (Psalm 13:1-2, 74:10, 89:46; Jeremiah 12:4; Habakkuk 1:2; Revelation 6:9–10).  The prophet Habakkuk got his answer: the fulfillment of all God’s promises would “surely come” at God’s “appointed time” (Habakkuk 2:3). The apostle Peter closes his second epistle with this encouragement: God isn’t slow; He will bring about a new heaven and a new earth, “where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:9, 13).  How are you waiting? With dread? Or with joy and expectation?