From the correspondence received by Stephen Mather during the later years of his position as Director of the National Park Service, we learn some interesting tidbits...
Stephen Mather had an envied facility from remembering names. From William Adams, a Director of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation…
“…I have many pleasant recollections of you in action but I think the sweetest of all is the night that you gave the buffalo dinner in Washington several years ago when you had some thirty-odd men around one table. You stood up and introduced each man, reeling off his full name, middle initials, and something about him, without a flurry. You were a great host and we had a fine time…”
“In the summer between his sophomore and junior years he worked as a book agent for The Home Physician in Shasta County…” The quote comes from Steve Mather and the National Parks but we also have a letter from Hartland Law, Stephen’s employer from that summer…
“…The work you have done will last as long as trees and flowers grow in these parks which you have so conserved and arranged for future generations…You may not remember me at all…but I was the elder Law of the Law, King & Law firm of publishers for whom you went out from Berkeley to the North to sell books…”
Stephen was Member #64 in the Order of Bookfellows, a Chicago-based literary society. A letter from George Steele Seymour encourages Stephen to renew his membership…
“…I find that somehow you have dropped off the active list, though you are still enrolled as Bookfellow #64. Whether it was my fault that you dropped out, I do not know; perhaps I was not energetic enough in urging you to renew…”
Stephen owned a Frankin. In a note to Stephen and his wife, Frank Logan of Logan’s Garage in Washington D.C. wrote… “I have put the Frankin car in dead storage, and it will taken care of until your return, which I hope will be before very long…”
[From a registration in Homestead papers, we know
the model was a 1926 Frankin Coupe.]
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