Yosemite ' s first woman ranger-naturalist by Mike Monroe

new novel ( 2023 ) by author Jill Caugherty entitled The View from Half Dome tells the story of a teenage girl who leaves San Francisco during the Depression reuniting with her brother who is working at a CCC camp in Yosemite Valley . There is a fair amount of fictionalized family drama , but I enjoyed the relationship that was forged between the heroine and a real-life person , Enid Reeve Michael , who was the first female rangernaturalist for the National Park Service in Yosemite .

Enid Reeve was born in Gilroy in 1883 . The large Reeve family arrived in Santa Clara County from Illinois in 1853 , settling in Pleasant Valley , as Gilroy was then known , in 1854 . A three hundred acre ' home ' ranch , south of the small cluster of homes and businesses along Monterey Road , was acquired from Julius Martin .

Enid Reeve Michael Photo Courtesy of U . S . National Parks .

Enid Reeve Michael moved to Yosemite National Park in 1918 . She married Charles Michael , the assistant postmaster of Yosemite Valley , and lived in a tent by the Merced River . In total , Enid wrote 537 articles about Yosemite , the largest collection written about Yosemite by one person . BELOW : A 1977 article by Lisa Rhudy in Yosemite Notes on Enid Michael ' s life and contributions .

Two of the Reeve brothers , Henry and Oscar , developed a dairy and cheese making business with 800 cows and 30 milkers , including two cheese specialists . At the peak of the Reeve Bros . dairy operation , the family either owned or leased 2,000 acres of valley land and owned 12,000 acres of rangeland in the Gavilan Hills . Unfortunately , the dairy business faltered around 1870 and the family sold much of their land to Henry Miller , including Reeve ' s ' home ranch ' which was located just south of today ' s intersection of Monterey and Thomas Roads . A portion of that parcel was along the rail corridor and became known as the Reeve Subdivision . Henry Miller , California ' s ' Cattle King ', was constantly expanding his Bloomfield Dairy and Ranch properties beginning in the 1860 ' s .

Enid and her family moved from Gilroy in 1897 to Los Angeles where she attended the State Normal School soon to be known as UCLA . After her father ' s passing , Enid and her mother were both teachers in Pasadena in 1907 . She became involved with the newly forming Sierra Club chapter and visited Yosemite where she met her future husband , Charles W . Michael in 1909 . Charles ( Charley ) had been working as the assistant postmaster , a position that he retained until 1935 . He never sought a promotion because it would interfere with his hobbies of rock climbing and ornithology . My hunch is that Enid and Charley both met John Muir before Muir ' s death in 1914 .

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