Edward Taylor Parsons 



221 



director, recently chairman of the Le Conte Memorial Lodge 

 Committee, and long" an untiring worker on the club Bulletin. 



In the work of other mountaineering clubs he also took an 

 active interest; was a charter member of the Mountaineers' 

 Club, organized in 1907, and only a few months before his 

 death was elected Western vice-president of the American 

 Alpine Club of Philadelphia. 



In 1907 he married Marion Randall, as able and enthusiastic 

 a mountaineer as himself, whom he first met on the Sierra Club 

 Outing of 1903, and three years later, in 1910, established his 

 first home high up on the Berkeley hills overlooking the Golden 

 Gate, some thirty-one eventful years after he left the home 

 farm. 



Like most mountaineers, Mr. Parsons was fond of wild 

 scenery. He carried a heavy camera on all his trips, however 

 difficult, up to the tops of the highest mountains and down 

 the roughest cafions, making numberless photographs, many of 

 which, reproduced in various publications, have done good 

 service in the promotion of mountaineering and particularly 

 in the cause of the preservation of our national forests and 

 parks. 



On first acquaintance he seemed at times to be rather dicta- 

 torial in carrying out the rules and regulations of the outing 

 committees of which he was a member ; but these impressions 

 quickly vanished when one saw him patiently at work in camp 

 or on the trail, stretching and cobbling shoes, reinforcing thin 

 soles, sharing his blanket with some unfortunate whose dun- 

 nage bag had gone astray. 



In helpful work he was never sparing of time or strength, 

 spending almost every spare moment of his last years in whole- 

 souled self-sacrificing devotion to the best interests of the club 

 in every way. For his unflagging devotion to the lost cause 

 of Hetch Hetchy he paid a heavy price in strength and health 

 as well as in time and money. After a very short illness he 

 passed away on May 22, 1914. He will be sadly missed and 

 his memory will long be cherished by all the mountaineers of 

 the West as one of the most faithful of the faithful. 



