January 19, 1859
On this day, Alice Eastwood, the “plant” heroine of the San Francisco earthquake, was born in Toronto, Canada.
Credited with saving much of California’s largest botanical collection when the Academy of Science was damaged in 1906, it was an extraordinary act 
of courage for a woman of the Victorian era. But Eastwood, (right) was not a typical Victorian woman.
For starters, she spent her early childhood on the grounds of the Toronto Asylum for the Insane where her father was steward. At age six, her mother died, leaving Eastwood to shoulder many of the household duties and care for her younger brother and sister.
Eventually shipped to relatives and then to a convent, the convent school’s priest was an amateur botanist, sparking the interest that would dominate her life.
The family was finally reunited several years later when Eastwood’s father moved to Denver, Colorado. Unable to afford college, she became a school teacher but roamed the Colorado countryside collecting plant specimens when not in the classroom. Well known locally for her botanical knowledge she was selected as a guide when famed British biologist Alfred Russell Wallace (right) came to town.
That caught the attention of another pioneering woman of science, Katherine Brandegree, (left) botany curator at the California Academy of Science. Brandegree hired Eastwood at the Acadamy’s herbarium.
Eastwood continued to ignore conventions of the day and do what she had always done, take solo excursions to collect specimans. Capable of strenuous field word, she could cover 20 miles a day on foot. It was not without risk. On one hike she was stranded on a rock ledge overnight and on another she was lost in the California foothills for two days. In addition, she was robbed numerous times.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake, however, presented her most daring challenge. The Academy building, badly damaged, (left) a fire in a paint factory raging next door and the stone stairways collapsed, Eastwood managed to climb to the sixth floor herbarium and rescuing as many of the herbarium’s speciman trays as possible.
Finally, with the fires out and conditions less dangerous, she searched the city’s rubble, collecting and cataloging which plants and survived the disaster.
Eastwood enjoyed a bit of a celebrity following the quake, invited to the White House by President Teddy Roosevelt and visiting London’s famous Kew Gardens. While in England she also became a unregistered student at Cambridge University, the only college she ever attended.
With a new facility at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park complete, Eastwood returned to the herbarium and the thousands of specimens she had saved and added thousands more. She continued to make forays into wild places until she was seriously injured in 1932 when struck by a car at the entrance to the park. (Right, field work in California)
Unable to collect specimens any longer, she researched and wrote, garnering an international reputation before retiring at the age o 90. Alice Eastwood died October 30, 1953 at the age of 94. The Academy of Science still retains many of her papers.
The California Academy of Science, 55 Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, is the only place in the world to visit a planetarium, aquarium and natural history museum under one roof. Completely rebuilt in 2008, the 4,000 feet of exhibit space includes a four-story rainforest, a coral reef, a rooftop garden and the nation’s largest digital planitarium dome.
Its open 365 days a year, Monday through Saturday, 9:30 to 5 and Sunday, 11 to 5. Because there is so much to see, the last admission is one hour before closing. The ticket price ] which includes all gallaries is $39.95 for adults; 30.95 for seniors, youth 12 to 17 and students 18 and up (valid ID required); $25.95 children 4 through 11 and under 4 free. For more information go to calacademy.org, e-mail info@calacademy.org or call (415) 379-8000.
© Text Only – 2017 – Headin’ West LLC – All photos – public domain.