What Kind of a Person Does it Take?

To Preserve Nature

 

To Make A Lasting Impact

 

In this case – to usher in a new approach 

to saving the biodiversity of the Earth

“Unstoppable, Irrepressible, Vulnerable, Tender, Profound”

 

Eleven Adventures in the Tallgrass Prairie with Professor Bob Betz

 

Introduction

 

Robert Betz and his prairies changed the world and its people. There had been prairie restoration before Betz, but not like this. His mind and sweat mingled with grasses and pollinators and the hearts of neighbors. He focused on vanishing remnants, finding them and caring for them, with the goal of making them whole again, inspiring a new and grittier view of nature.

 

Few cared about prairies in 1959. Betz made caring for them the rage. Later that care expanded as we found that we were also losing our last good wetlands and forests too. "We the people" of 1959 America were alienated from the ecosystem – unknowing what it needed, having none of its dirt under our fingernails, more focused on cars and air conditioners. We strongly believed the best treatment for nature, if we thought about it at all, was to leave it alone.

 

Betz was a biochemistry professor. He never became professional in his adopted prairie mission. Love, the pure science of amateurism, was what empowered him. 

Like many, I learned what the word “prairie” meant through Dr. Betz’ essay in Torkel Korling’s influential little book of photographs, Prairie Swell and Swale. A precious jewel had come into my possession. Could it really be that those electrifying photos had been taken in nature around Chicago somewhere? 

And when I read the essay – ten little unnumbered pages – suddenly prairie plants and animals were crying out to us: “People! What’s the matter with you?! Help us!”

 

1.  How the professor himself learned what the word prairie meant

 

As he reported it, July 6, 1959 was his rebirth. Betz had loved wild plants and animals since he was a kid. He thought he pretty much knew the local ones. But on this day, now a professor, he attended a little field seminar with ace botanist Floyd Swink at what is now called Santa Fe Prairie. A few acres on the side of a railroad, it teemed with hundreds of plant species, all new to Betz. How could this be? Swink explained that these were the true prairie species, and they could rarely be found, except along railroads, where the soil had never been plowed.

An original prairie. Less than 1/100^th of 1% of this great ecosystem survives. 

Betz was changed forever when he saw one. 

The richness haunted Betz. He started trekking down railroad rights-of-way through farm country to learn what he could about this nearly lost world. Yes, occasionally he found remnants, mostly with just a few of his newly-learned plant species. One day, as he walked along a railroad in northwestern Will County slogging past mile after mile of corn and soybeans, he glanced across a road to the east at what first seemed like a mirage. Blooming prairie docks waved in the wind. He raced over and found another real remnant, as rich as Santa Fe. But this one had tombstones in it. Settler cemeteries turned out to be another place where the prairie was not plowed – and survived. Soon in spare hours he was searching maps and driving down back roads checking out both railroads and cemeteries. 

 

Later after Betz had become famous, the media followed him, and volunteers helped him work miracles. But he was always playing the long game. In the meantime, his railroad and cemetery discoveries helped inspire a whole corps of discovery, the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory (see Endnote 1.), a world first in biodiversity conservation. 

 

2. Experimenting with a different relationship

 

Betz very much respected the academics for what they knew, but he was dubious about some of their judgments. They’d known of prairies, but in a different way. A favorite story was of his meeting Professor Almut Jones, a stern Germanic botanist , as he told it. 

 

Betz was on hands and knees, grimy and sweating under a hot sun in a cemetery. He was learning to protect these orphan remnants from the “weeds” or “invasives” that seemed to be slowly erasing them. He was focused on this work and thoughts, when a loud voice commanded, “Who are you? And What Are You Doing?!” In front stood the august Professor, behind her a puzzled group of students. He claimed to have replied in a high-pitched voice, “Well, I’m just Bobby Betz, and I’m trying to care for this precious prairie remnant.” 

 

To her credit, this botanist knew what prairie plants were and was trying to interest others. But she did not approve of Betz inserting himself. Indeed, the few people who cared about nature back then pretty much all thought: Don’t meddle. You can only hurt it.

 

For example, another highly respected early botanist who deserves credit for her many contributions, Alice Kibbe, wrote somewhere (as I vaguely remember) of the tragedy of railroads burning their rights-of-way to control brush: The delicate prairie flowers are being eliminated by that thoughtless burning, she wrote, completely wrong. 

 

Betz explained to Jones and whoever would listen – and continued explaining for decades. Gradual agreement from most academics was slow, but it came. Nature needs us.

 

3. How to negotiate like a blow-up toy

 

Later, after we’d become friends of sorts, Betz would drive me to places he had found – and was now acting steward of. He’d tell me their stories. He spoke with a passion for changing the world. Those stories mentored me, as he intended them to. (I pass them on to you, attempting that same gift.)

 

I asked, “If I understand right, you’re now somehow in charge of some of these cemetery gems?” 

 

“Oh, the cemetery boards!” he responded, with a tone of doom, and wincing, as if to ward off a blow.

 

In each little town there’d be a few guys who had authority over the cemetery – perhaps one banker, one hardware store owner, and the adjacent farmer, not a fan of untended weeds. 

 

Betz would explain that true prairie species would never invade a corn field, that these were all very rare plants, the last remnants on the planet, a fitting memorial to their pioneer ancestors who had seen and conquered the original prairies. He’d ask the board to stop mowing. He’d offer to pull all the farm weeds out. He wanted to burn. 

 

“They always said no at first,” he admitted. But Betz had a technique. “You know those beach toys that kids like? A blow-up clown, with a weighted bottom, and a big painted-on smile, and you could tip it over, and it would always stand back up? I was that clown. I’d say, ‘Please mister official,’ and they’d punch me right in the face. But I’d pop back up, a week or a month later. I’d give them some new news, some new discovery, I’d ask more about their crops and family. I provided the results of research into whatever questions they’d asked. And then I remind them of my requests.”

 

“Bam, I’m knocked back down. Bam, again and again. But you know what? I kept smiling. I actually liked these men. They took their responsibilities seriously, they were learning, and sooner or later, after too many punches, their arms would get tired. They’d say okay.”

 

When he got approval, he’d put up a sign explaining that this rare remnant, in honor of the pioneers interred here, was being protected by the Prairie Preservation Society. (“I didn’t mention that I was the only member.”) 

 

4. The first book

 

His was a very new vision – learned by work and dedication to the little remnants he was finding. Prairie nature would die without our help. His was the single most influential book in my life and in some other people’s lives back then. Photographer Torkel Korling self-published the thin, small, exquisitely printed book of 64 photos of prairie plants in nature – each on a 4 ¼ by 6 ½ inch page. The message was the beauty and the words packed into those ten pages. 

 

Neither the front nor back cover of the book contained a word.

Given the photo, any word would have detracted.

Here, eleven prairie white-fringed orchids stand in Grade A prairie.

Perhaps no such patch of quality survives today.

But with so many sites recovering so well under restoration, some day they may be common. 

The simple title of Betz's essay was: “What is a Prairie?”

 

“The destruction has been so complete that most of the farmers in this vast region have never seen a virgin prairie. Most prairie plants are so rare or uncommon today that field guides published to aid amateur naturalists in identifying plants do not even mention them.”

“To the uninitiated, the idea of a walk through a prairie might seem to be no more exciting than crossing a field of wheat, a cow pasture, or an unmowed blue-grass lawn. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

 

He describes the richness of plant and animal species – and the scientific and practical value of the genes represented in those barely surviving relics. But he ends:

 

“It seems immoral to destroy an integral and important part of the biological world from which mankind arose … In our modern … artificiality, complexity, and instability … places to go for peace and solitude. For this alone, prairies should be preserved and cherished.”

 

Note the word “cherished.” He loved them. He sought to empower us to love them too. 

 

5. Cyclone fences

 

“Prairie Preservation Society” signs helped but were often insufficient. People rutted prairie remnants with vehicles. They dumped farm waste, dug rare plants, disposed of old tires.

 

Betz and a growing army of activist colleagues started raising funds for fencing, which soon surrounded many prairies including Woodworth, Vermont, and Glenbrook Prairies. For St. Stephan’s Cemetery Prairie, folks raised what funds they could, but the campaign stalled. So they used what funds they had to put in just the poles. The prairie became surrounded by what looked like an anorexic Stonehenge. It made a statement, and expressed a confidence that the cyclone fence “fabric” would eventually come, as eventually it did.

 

Betz had a speech that he’d often make about those fences. His tone would be ominous and harsh. “These precious ecosystem remnants can stand no more degradation! I want to fence them all! Put a big padlock on the gate! No one has the key!” And then in a very small voice and a hint of a smile he’d add, “except me.” 

 

Today I would judge that a mistake. He wanted appreciation but didn’t think many people worthy of being part of the ecosystem’s recovery, as he was. 

 

6. Ambush

 

My first actual encounter with Betz was a shock, and a trap of sorts. Inspired and educated by his book, some of us had started the North Branch Prairie Project in 1977. A year later we were a struggling group with a certain amount of momentum. But, to our horror, despite their promises, the Forest Preserve staff mowed four beautiful prairies they’d allowed us to become stewards of.   

 

People who had been out carefully tending these precious fields of wildflowers at first felt devastated. But soon outrage and determination set in. People flooded the Forest Preserve staff and Commissioners with heartfelt concern and earnest arguments. Dr. William Beecher, director of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, weighed in strongly. Perhaps more important, a Democratic Ward Committeeman did the same. Opinion makers and neighborhood organizations wanted answers.

 

Superintendent of Conservation Roland Eisenbeis had tentatively approved our work on these Forest Preserve “prairie remnants” – as we claimed them to be. But a year later, some staff person (perhaps with more political pull?) decided they should go. Eisenbeis organized a field meeting, bringing with him the most important higher-ups he could assemble, including John Mark, the North Branch Maintenance Superintendent (who seemed to have ordered the mowing). Representing the NBPP were Larry Hodak and me. Eisenbeis introduced all his people, including chief forester Sam Gabriel and Landscape Architect Joe Nevius (who was soon to rise to General Superintendent of the preserves), but they seemed not ready to start. We stood around for a while, and then a final car pulled into the Wayside Woods lot.

 

Out stepped a bearded guy. It turned out that Betz had been asked to come to pass judgment on whether these areas were prairies or not. In fact, Eisenbeis seemed to be asking for his judgment in quite a prejudicial way. We knew that these patches weren’t high quality. They had some remnant species mixed with larger numbers of weeds and invasives. Eisenbeis asked, “So, Professor Betz, we know that there are a number of high-quality prairies that you want us to care for. Now we want you to look at four sites here and tell us whether we should put our efforts here, or in those other ones you’ve told us about.”

From left to right: volunteer Larry Hodak. Chief Forester Sam Gabriel. Professor Bob Betz. Superintendent of Conservation Roland Eisenbeis. (Photo by Steve Packard)

Betz agonized. He didn't like controversy.

From left: Steve Packard, Prof. Betz, Roland Eisenbeis, John Mark, Sam Gabriel.

(Photo by Larry Hodak. There weren't many of us back then.)

It seemed almost as if the better quality gems would be held hostage. Betz, always expressive, kept getting this look of great pain on his face. We sought to exacerbate that pain by asking a follow-up question whenever Eisenbeis asked his. “Dr. Betz, do you think people who are getting “prairie fever” should go visit the best ones – and trample all over them – or should they come to places like this – and watch the miracle of recovery?” (I don’t guarantee that we used the exact words in quotes here. But I remember them as best I can to tell the story.) In favor of our side was the fact that Betz wanted to encourage “prairie fever” as he called it. Against us was the perhaps more significant fact that Betz's main goal in life was to save the best remnants by charming and pleading with the agencies that owned them. There were indeed a few dozen acres of fine original prairies among the 60,000 acres of forest preserves, and they weren’t yet being cared for. 

 

We spent much of the day looking at our four putative prairies – Wayside, Miami, Bunker Hill, and Sauganash. Each time Betz was asked the same questions. Each time he squirmed. 

 

I later learned that Forest Preserve naturalist Paul Strand had been convinced by Betz’s campaigning and had advocated for prairies to the Superintendent of Conservation. Eisenbeis's reply? “I could count the Cook County taxpayers who care about prairie on the fingers of one hand.” Eisenbeis had been a dedicated and visionary Forest Preserve staff leader, with much to his credit. And it was very in keeping with that dedication that he was sensitive to what the public would support and would not. Dr. Betz was learning this same lesson. Cyclone fences were not enough. Much prairie life would not survive over the long haul on an acre or two inside a fence. Forest preserves had thousands of acres where prairie could recover, if anybody cared enough. He weighed these ideas as he agonized over Eisenbeis’s questions. 

 

Finally at Sauganash Prairie, I mentioned the need to cut some trees, and the previously smiling Chief Forester, Sam Gabriel, now turned a bit white with horror. Betz pulled me aside and whispered, “Steve, let up. You’ve got ‘em. Just say what’s easy and positive.” I was thrilled with the mentoring. It meant he was on our side.

 

Finally Betz said, “Okay, I’ve seen enough. Yes, these are incipient prairies.” 

 

A glorious victory. North Branch Regional Superintendent John Mark looked crabby, but in time he liked us. He became a good friend and supporter. His staff did what they could to help the prairies. Amen. 

 

7. How to deal with authority

 

In public and formal situations Betz was impressively deferential to authority – especially to the biology academic establishment. He had no degrees in the fields he dedicated his free time to, that is botany, ecology, entomology, ornithology, etc. 

 

When asked a technical question, if biology academics were present, he’d likely toss the ball to one of them. When he gave papers at conferences, he’d always make humble reference to the official experts in the field and suggest that he hoped his little contribution would have some minor worth. 

 

He shied away from stating anything as a fact but rather used language like “it would seem” or “the data suggest” or “one might wonder if” when he expressed what he was learning about the ecosystem. At first, I couldn’t help think he seemed too vaguely abject. In time, as he became my friend and sought out my company on prairie road trips, he made it plain that the good of the prairie required him not to step on the toes of the powerful, like the biology professors especially of the Illinois state university system.

Professors, especially from Illinois State, Eastern, Northern, Western and Southern Illinois Universities, were key to the decisions of the emerging Illinois Nature Preserves Commission. Betz would describe debates at Commission meetings on whether the prairies should be burned. The academic opposition was ill-informed but ferocious. He’d shudder and raise his shoulders as if to protect his head when he’d describe the barbs that would be aimed at him when he would “suggest” or “wonder” about various management questions. He’d never argue with them. But bit by bit, most of the academics came around. Some grew old and died. Gradually, the prairies were being burned more and getting healthier, but progress depended on not rocking the wrong boats, and he was always cautious about giving the remotest offense to academics or officials. He’d either win them over with positivity and kindness … or wear them down with commitment.  

 

Betz's plant taxonomy mentor was Floyd Swink, a person who competed to be the center of attention. Swink also had no degrees in his field, botany. But Betz would laughingly refer to him as “Der Floydl” which I never quite understood, but somehow was meant to remind us that Swink’s botanical brilliance was a force of nature and to convey reverence and affection. The competitive Swink was eager for primacy. More than once I heard Betz say to us amateurs, “If the heads of the botany departments of the greatest universities claimed the plant was a white-fringed orchid, and Floyd said it was a dandelion – it was a dandelion.” 

 

When a Chicago Sun-Times photographer was taking a later celebrated photo of Swink, Schulenberg, Betz, and me for a feature on the prairie, Betz raised his hand and took Swink by the shoulder and pushed him forward, rearranging us, saying “Wait a minute. Floyd should be out front.” 

 

Betz’s humility was strategic. He might say, “No I don’t think I could do that. Too many people would be unhappy with me. You know, I’ll tell you what, people don’t like to hear ideas that are too new. First they say it’s obviously wrong, then they claim it’s insignificant, then they say, ‘of course, it’s obvious, we knew that all the time’. That’s the point when you give them the credit, and the argument is won.” 

 

8. Old Testament prophet

 

On the other hand, in private, Betz was irrepressible about what impassioned him. A National Geographic article that featured him introduced him as “a man who speaks in italics.” Despite his beard and lofty language, when he’d talk about the plight of the prairie his voice would verge on crying as his eyes would go wide and his face adopt an expression of fear or panic. Next he might thunder like an Old Testament prophet. 

 

Betz's passion didn’t work on everyone. I convinced Illinois Nature Conservancy director, Ralph Brown, to ride with him to look at some site that Betz wanted to save. When Brown returned, I expected him to be impressed positively with Betz. Instead Brown said, “What an ordeal! He yells at you the whole way!” I didn’t push for any more such trips. 

 

Betz could decry the tragedy of alienated modern life and a moment later be tenderly cradling a tiny rare flower and speaking to, and about, it with the deepest tenderness. 

 

He could also share confidences. He said to me, more than once, “You and I can have the ideas and try the things we do because we’ve never studied this academically.” We have a different role.

 

9. Milkweed dramas

 

Betz was a star at conferences. After hearing him once, in my new position as ‘Director of Public Information’ with the Natural Land Institute, I convinced Betz to be a featured speaker at our conference to announce the new Illinois Natural Areas Inventory. 

 

I asked Betz to speak on milkweeds. It was an insanely-nerdy-sounding topic for a major speech to the general public, even to him. I believed that his passion for milkweeds and pollinators would triumph. We talked it up and people flocked into a huge amphitheater where we scheduled it. 

 

People were puzzled about the buzz for this one – and grew more puzzled as he dryly opened with a lot of “It would seem that the genus Asclepias blah blah blah.” The slides were interesting, but Betz gave only Latin names of the plants, despite calls from the audience for common names. People fidgeted. 

 

But everything changed when he started recounting his efforts to save rare species. Wooly milkweed was failing to get pollinated. Could we restore missing pollinators? Mead’s milkweed survived in only a couple of prairies in the entire state (and was already extinct in many states). Its only large Illinois population had recently been destroyed when a garden club bulldozed it (he looked increasingly dispirited, disheartened, despondent) for “beautification” to plant ornamental shrubs. 

 

The only surviving Mead's milkweed in an Illinois railroad prairie. Here in bud: The few, large flowers will range from pale whitish yellow to yellowish green. 

Dr. Betz photographing that milkweed. 

 

So he experimented with propagating many species in his garden. At first they thrived. But then something started killing them. Too many together? (Most milkweeds in nature tend to be spread out.) Was something eating them? He had a hunch and went out one evening with a flashlight. “And There They Came!” By this point the entire audience was sitting on the edge of their seats – mouths as wide as their eyes. “Out of the Ground! Weevils!!!” And the audience nearly screamed with horror. “Gardens won’t hold them,” he summarized. “We need to save whole prairies.” 

 

10. Fermilab

 

His biggest project (measured by acres) was a testament to “prairie fever” (companies, subdivisions, and whatnot were increasingly being named “Prairie This” and “Prairie That”) and the vision of a great physicist. Manhattan Project physicist Robert R. Wilson was building a “best in the world” electron accelerator around a mile-wide circle on former cornfields in DuPage county. Betz talked him into restoring prairie in the protected center of that circle. Its story has been told many times, for example on the Fermilab website.

 

Soon the prairie was spilling out of the ring and covering much larger swaths of federal land. Betz used to say something like “The half-life of government research institutions is (some number) of years. We’ve got to get this prairie good enough and appreciated enough that the public will demand saving it when the physics research goes belly up.” 

 

11. Markham

 

Perhaps Betz's preeminent love was a discovery he made while visiting relatives in a suburb south of Chicago. He named it the Gensburg-Markham Prairie after the suburb and the Gensburg family who owned most of it. With the ownership fragmented as part of a failed subdivision, most people had stopped paying taxes. As a result of the recognition (and upon being shown that economically they “could do well by doing good”), they donated 60 acres to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in 1971. 

 

When Betz discovered Markham Prairie, it was nearly covered with brush. Some experts said, "It's not a prairie. Too many trees." Betz studied the flora and said, "It's a degraded high-quality prairie. It can be brought back." 

There was a great deal more surviving prairie nearby, and Betz advocated tirelessly for more to be saved. He was so persistent that the TNC director at the time, Neal Gaston, got the board to pass a resolution decreeing that the Markham project was finished. Done. No more land. 

 

At that time, I was Field Rep for the Natural Land Institute, and Betz appealed to me for help. I plunged in, researching ownerships and meeting with the various characters who owned parcels. One was an aging former boxer who still seemed “punchy” and liked to kiss me and most everyone in arms’ reach. Bit by bit we acquired additions from the five semi-separate parcels where the best prairie survived. 

 

When the Institute lost funding in an unrelated drama and I moved to TNC, I convinced my colleagues that it was embarrassing that TNC had dropped this important project, and we rolled up our sleeves again. Betz was thrilled. The protected prairie there is now 468 acres. 

 

Betz burns Markham Prairie, accompanied by media, to teach the world. 

Like all large prairies, much of it was degraded in various ways. Betz used what he’d learned from the cemeteries, gathered seed of species that survived nearby, and broadcast it in the preserved areas, to great results. (See Endnotes 2 and 3.) As with every biodiversity site, the threats, challenges, and opportunities continue. But the jewel survives and brightens in many ways. These 468 teeming acres are now part of the 115,923 acres of the 607-site Illinois Nature Preserves System. That system (and initiatives that have been inspired by it and by Betz across the country and around the world) owe their greatness to thousands of volunteers and staff who are now an increasingly solid part of our culture, and to Professor Robert F. Betz. 

 

Endnotes

Endnote 1

The Illinois Natural Areas Inventory asked the question “Where does nature survive in Illinois?” In the process, the Inventory defined what a “natural area” was -  and found 610 of them, comprising 7/100th of 1% of the surface area of the state. At the time, people asked if it might not be too ambitious to try to preserve that much. Apparently not, as most sites got preserved. But keeping them thriving has been a challenge in many cases.  

Endnote 2

At first Betz told me that scattering seeds wouldn't work. But we both experimented and found that, done right, it would. He was reluctant to talk about inter-seeding into remnants, fearing that people would criticize both him and the genuineness of the site. That's an important topic for a future blog post. In the meantime, for more details on how Betz and others thought about it back then, see: "Successional Restoration: Thinking Like a Prairie" by Steve Packard in Restoration & Management Notes. Vol. 12, No. 1 (summer 1994) pages 32-39.

Endnote 3

Dr. Betz's wife Eleanor privately published his book "The Prairie of the Illinois Country" posthumously. It's a splendid contribution, but perhaps hard to find, as only a few hundred copies were published. He had offered it to a publisher in his lifetime, but editors wanted to make changes that he could not abide.

Endnote 4

Santa Fe Prairie today is an Illinois Nature Preserve. But it does not have the health and richness that inspired Betz on July 6, 1959. Before the Santa Fe Railroad agreed to its preservation, it was unprotected for many years and became a motorcycle recreation area, essentially plowed by motorcycle tires. The hope was that it could be restored, once dedicated as a preserve. Such restoration, if it's to be successful at all, is in early stages. But many other very high-quality prairies are indeed protected as Illinois Nature Preserves.  Most such preserves still need more good stewardship than they're getting, a primary goal of Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves.   

 

Bonus photo

From old files. It seems to do a great job of showing Dr. Betz in his other characteristic habitat. He gave speeches: to community groups, conferences, cemetery boards - whoever might be interested and who might make a difference.

His passion, caring, and enthusiasm filled every space. In this photo, he's probably getting ready to address the Orland Grassland Volunteers. The other people in the photo are Pat Hayes and Stephen Packard. 

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rebeccah Hartz, Kathy Garness, and Eriko Kojima for much proofing and editing.

And thanks for the following added comment from Kathy. 

The way I heard the Almut Jones story was this:

"Dr. Robert Betz was deeply interested in natural remnants, some of the best of which were small cemetery prairies. One day – out in Ford County, possibly – he was pulling weeds and tending this small cemetery prairie, when Almut came by with one of her classes. They made many (maybe too many??) plant collections from this prairie for their study ( ?) pages. Dr. Betz was not pleased with this loss of precious plant material. But he was less pleased when he heard Almut point to a plant and say “This is Oenothera biennis”. Unable to remain silent any longer, Bob stood up and said ‘You mean that is GAURA biennis!” Almut did not know what to make of this shirtless man, presumably the cemetery gardener, and certainly not aware that she was coming head to head with the soon-to-be famous botanist, Dr. Robert Betz."

(Kathy writes: "This is from a conversation with Gerould Wilhelm, which account seemed worth writing down at the time, because of my interest in early Illinois botanists.")