Plans to transform a grassy field into a prairie planting began in early 1990. The planting would eventually be named in honor of Esther O’Connor.
Esther O’Connor collected a wide variety of natural history books throughout her life. Most still reside at the BAS Library and Nature Center. She had a special love for birds, but also plants and flowers. I wanted to provide an antidote to this week’s endless dreary weather, so please enjoy these photos from a few of her flower books, published between the years 1935 and 1981.
WILD FLOWERS: Homer D. House. Published by Macmillan, New York (1935).
I would never denigrate photography or photographers when that medium produces so many awe-inspiring images of the natural world. And thanks to the development of digital photography, everyone can participate, for citizen science purposes, or just for the joy of creating personal nature memories
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA: Illustrations by Mary Vaux Walcott and Dorothy Falcon Platt, edited by H.W. Rickett. Published by Crown Publishers, New York (1953).
But I have a special admiration for those who can bring flora and fauna to life in drawings and paintings like these. When an artist painstakingly reproduces every detail of a bird or a flower, they must know the subject as no one else can! We can see why Esther treasured these books–she appreciated art, as well as science.
-Elizabeth Stoakes, BAS Historian
WILD FLOWERS OF THE WORLD: Brian D. Morley, Barbara Everard (paintings). Published in by Peerage Books, London (1981).
Remembering Esther with great fondness. I attended the Kansas City Art Institute in the 1980’s. I was so young and homesick so far away from Oregon. Esther took me under her wing and I often went with her to the Library to read the books and watch birds. She helped me connect with the BAS and I went on many field trips too. She made my time at art school much richer by keeping me connected with nature and I came to appreciate the special landscape of Missouri and Kansas.
Thanks for sharing your fond memories of Esther!
So much, so much to say. Esther was a distant relative of mine. My mom visited her in her KC home countless times. Esther, herself, gave me the blueprints to that house.
I was super young when I met her, but so many years of my life have been influenced by her.
I am sitting on my sunporch, looking at the wildflowers that grow outside my own window.
Thanks for sharing. It’s unfortunate that Esther’s house is no longer.
THE LATE ESTHER O’CONNOR
I will always remember the day that I encountered Esther O’Connor at the Burroughs Audubon Library near Lake Jacomo. When I mentioned that I worked for UMKC she became thoroughly agitated. Esther’s former domicile situated on the north bank of Brush Creek, Kansas City, Missouri, had been obliterated because the UMKC chancellor had a plan to remove the neighborhood to develop a research park that would duplicate what Stanford University had done in Palo Alto, California.
The research park and expected dollars never actually worked.
However subsequent efforts did in some ways. The Kauffman Gardens for example. The plants are fine. And sometimes redwinged blackbirds, deer, kingfishers, and even red-headed woodpeckers that are more typical in rural settings appear. Could they be ghosts of the late Ms. O’Connor!l?
Raymond Martin Coveney, Kansas City, Missouri
Ray, did the Plaza/Brush Creek flood of 1977 precede or scuttle (so to speak) UMKC’s plans? The flood did severe damage to Esther’s home and property. Many of her books were moved to the Audubon Library following the disaster. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) played no small part in the project to mitigate flooding along Brush Creek and Town Fork in Jackson County, MO and Rock Creek in Johnson County, KS. Esther lived along Brush Creek south of 48th St., between Rockhill Rd. and Troost Ave., and part of the COE’s mitigation plans involved removing the residential structures between Troost Ave. and Rockhill Rd. (see Fig. 4 on p. 17, noting Description of Measures Considered #18, as well as excerpt on page E-9 [p.‹] at the following link). https://tinyurl.com/yjfvudbe