< Browse to Previous Essay | Browse to Next Essay >

Schmoe, Floyd W. (1895-2001)

HistoryLink.org Essay 3876 : Printer-Friendly Format

Floyd Schmoe was a naturalist and a peace activist. He drove ambulances in World War I, was the first official naturalist at Mount Rainier National Park, gave up his position at the University of Washington during World War II to help interned Japanese Americans, built houses in Hiroshima for survivors of the atomic bombing, and created the Seattle Peace Park.

Schmoe was born in Kansas in 1895, first came to Seattle in 1917 to study forestry at the University of Washington. He was immediately captivated by the water and mountains of the Northwest. A sixth-generation Quaker, he was a conscientious objector in World War I, serving as an ambulance driver on the battlefields of France.

Schmoe wanted to climb Mount Rainier from the minute he saw it. Soon after he returned from France in 1919, he and his wife Ruth were hired as winter caretakers for the Paradise Inn high on the mountain, buried under 30 feet of snow. In the summer, Schmoe worked as a guide on the mountain, which he ultimately climbed 14 times. After completing his degree, Schmoe served as District Ranger for the Paradise District of Mount Rainier National Park, living in a cabin in the park with Ruth and their children. Later, from 1924 to 1928 he was the Park’s first Park Naturalist.

Following his stint at Paradise, Schmoe took a teaching position at the University of Washington, and spent several summers with his family in the San Juan Islands while he did research for an advanced degree.

When World War II broke out, Schmoe helped arrange for the evacuation of European Jews, and shipped supplies to war victims in Asia and Europe. He left his position at the University to help Japanese American residents of Seattle who were forced to move to Minidoka Relocation Center in Hunt, Idaho. Schmoe opposed the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1948, three years after the bombing, he organized volunteers to rebuild homes in the Japanese cities.

Schmoe continued his peace work in later wars, helping to build orphanages and hospitals, dig ditches, and repair wells in Korea, the Middle East, and Africa. He also wrote, authoring over a dozen books in the course of his life, including A Year In Paradise, about his time on Mount Rainier, and For the Love of Some Islands, about a summer spent exploring the natural history of the San Juan Islands with his family.

The nuclear bombing of Japan and its aftermath remained with Schmoe. At the age of 95, he created the Seattle Peace Park to commemorate those who died. Schmoe not only applied for permits, raised funds, and organized volunteers, but also did much of the bulldozing, raking gravel, planting trees and mowing grass. The small park, located at the north end of Seattle's University Bridge overlooking Lake Union, contains a bronze statue of Sadako, a Japanese girl who died of leukemia 12 years after the bombing. The figure of Sadako is holding a folded paper crane.

On April 20, 2001, Floyd Schmoe died in Kenmore at the age of 105.

Sources:
Ray Rivera, "Floyd Schmoe's Lifetime of the Heart Remembered," The Seattle Times, April 30, 2001; Marc Ramirez, "A Prime Activist: Creator of Seattle Peace Park is Dead at 105," Ibid., April 24, 2001; Paula Bock, "Northwest People: No Waiting," Ibid., September 14, 1997; Alex Tizon, "Sharing Hope for Peace," Ibid., March 30, 1997 (Seattle Times articles found under keyword "Floyd Schmoe" in http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com); Floyd Schmoe, A Year In Paradise (Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1999), 9, 14-17, 165-66; Schmoe, For Love of Some Islands (New York, Harper & Row, 1964), 6, 9-11.

By Kit Oldham, July 03, 2002

More information: < Browse to Previous Essay | Browse to Next Essay > | Search |
Related Topics: Biographies | War & Peace |

Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You