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A Life of Stewardship: Charlie Dilks’ Dedication to Conservation

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Friday, May 17, 2024
By Chrissy Clawson, Programs and Communications Manager

The Chestnut Hill Conservancy’s sold-out Spring Gala on Saturday, June 8, will honor Charlie Dilks, a man whose commitment to conservation has significantly impacted the community. Held on the grounds of a historic Norman-style home with conserved land in Wyndmoor, the gala will recognize his contributions to preserving the natural and historical beauty of Chestnut Hill and its surrounding areas.

A Lifelong Passion for Nature

Dilks’ conservation journey began in childhood, inspired by his mother, a naturalist who founded the Women’s Committee at the Academy of Natural Sciences. Growing up near Cresheim Creek, he spent countless hours exploring the Wissahickon, collecting salamanders, minnows, and crawfish. 

His passion for the environment deepened when he discovered a new crab species in Maple Shade, New Jersey, with Dr. Horace Richards from the Academy of Natural Sciences. Richards named the new species Prehepatus dilksi in honor of Charlie Dilks in 1962. Recalling a recent visit to the Academy, Dilks shared, “I mentioned the story during a behind-the-scenes tour, and a staff member pulled it out of a drawer in the Academy archives.”

Books like “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” and “Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop” by Euell Gibbons sparked an interest in natural foods and foraging. This interest extended into his professional life, where he continuously sought ways to improve environmental health and sustainability. “Being brought up in that environment put me on the path,” he said. “That’s where it started and has kept me going ever since.”

Funding the Future

Recognizing that there are many like him in the community who wish to support environmental protection, Dilks introduced the “Catalyst” program to help fund a full-time easement manager at the Conservancy. Catalyst is the highest level of Conservancy membership ($5,000+), where half of the contribution can directly support the easement manager position.

“We needed the strength to take easements and enforce them, which requires financial and human resources,” he explained. “I felt and still feel that major donors need to step up and become more involved, contributing to overall operations and specific programs that ensure our future success.” This initiative established a full-time Easement Manager position at the Conservancy, enhancing the organization’s ability to protect and manage conservation easements.

“All our activities are important, but the easement program is particularly significant to me,” he said. “It’s about providing resources for people who want to preserve their properties and ensuring we have the staff and funding to support these efforts.”

Enduring Commitment

His long-term involvement with the Conservancy and other environmental organizations, such as Natural Lands, Friends of Fairmount Park (now called Fairmount Park Conservancy), Pennsylvania Environmental Council, the Schuylkill Center, and the Friends of the Wissahickon (FOW), underscores his enduring commitment. “Friends of the Wissahickon is one of the lucky organizations to have been led by Charlie Dilks as board president, and his leadership focused our work and significantly grew our organizational capacity,” said Ruffian Tittmann, the Executive Director of FOW.

Advice for Future Conservationists

To the next generation of conservationists, Dilks emphasizes the importance of financial stability. He believes having reserves for unforeseen contingencies and the ability to undertake new projects is essential for any organization’s longevity and effectiveness. “Without financial viability, important organizations could be just surviving from one month to the next,” he emphasized. “We need to ensure they have the resources to support these programs and grow.”

Evolving Conservation Efforts

Over the years, Dilks has witnessed significant advancements in conservation. When he first became involved, the FOW and the Conservancy shared offices and a small staff with 2.5 staff members for each organization. Today, both organizations have expanded their reach and are recognized leaders in the community of conservation. “There’s been a general movement towards greater awareness and action in environmental preservation,” he said. “The Conservancy and other groups are at the forefront of educating our community about the importance of these efforts.”

“Charlie’s dedication and vision have been instrumental in our growth,” said Lori Salganicoff, Executive Director of the Chestnut Hill Conservancy. “Since the Catalyst program began in 2018, we have added seven new conservation easements. Charlie saw opportunities and has always been first to participate.”

Sharing Institutional Knowledge

Playing a pivotal role in preserving institutional memory, Dilks offers his extensive experience to guide current and future efforts. He stresses the importance of asking questions and seeking knowledge to navigate the complexities of conservation work. “I’ve been involved with more than half a dozen environmental groups, bringing experience and insights to the Conservancy and the Friends,” he shared. “It’s about finding the right people and asking the right questions to continue our mission effectively.”

Looking Forward

As the Conservancy celebrates his contributions at the Spring Gala, it also looks to the future. His vision of a stable, growing organization continues to energize the Conservancy’s mission to preserve the natural and historical character of Chestnut Hill and surrounding communities in the Wissahickon watershed. “We have viable organizations able to undertake more activities and produce positive change,” he said. “It’s about looking ahead and ensuring we have the resources and leadership to keep moving forward.”

Charlie Dilks’s legacy is a testament to the power of dedication, vision, and community support in conservation.

Read in the Chestnut Hill Local

Liz Jarvis: History Turns a New Page

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Friday, May 17, 2024
By Chrissy Clawson, Programs and Communications Manager

Liz Jarvis retired on May 3 from the Chestnut Hill Conservancy after 30 years of caring for and growing the Conservancy’s Archives. The Archives will continue serving as a legacy and resource for our community for generations.

Early Career

Earning art history and fine arts degrees as an undergraduate and a Master’s Degree in art history and museum studies, Liz worked at the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where she was an exhibition registrar. She arranged transportation for Picassos, checked the conditions of Renoirs, and couriered shipments of Ansel Adams photographs on a cargo flight. She once couriered a Matisse from MoMA in a taxi across Manhattan with the painting curator and conservator to take it to a framer!

 

After a year at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Liz gained more experience as the Museum Curator for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania for nine years. There, she organized and cataloged a large collection of artifacts and paintings, culminating in a long-term exhibition about Philadelphia’s history. These artifacts and paintings are now part of the Drexel University collection.

Early Years at the Chestnut Hill Historical Society

Having left the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Liz was a freelance curator for many institutions, including the Union League, Awbury Arboretum, Christ Church, and Hawk Mountain. In 1994, she joined the Chestnut Hill Historical Society (now the Chestnut Hill Conservancy) for a six-month freelance position funded by an anonymous donor. “After six months, no one asked me to leave,” says Liz, “so I kept working two days a week for the next 30 years.”

In her first year, Liz introduced public open hours, developed a collections policy, implemented a nationally standardized collection numbering system, and collected donor records to record important provenance information. Liz implemented the digitization of the collection early in her tenure when many institutions were struggling with how to do it. Much of this was achieved through the good work of over 85 volunteers and student interns whom Liz trained during her time there.

Accomplishments and Community Engagement

Liz and her husband Andrew restored their 1854 Italianate house in Chestnut Hill, which they bought in 1993. In 2000, they placed façade and open space easements on the property to protect this landmark for the future.

In 1997, Liz secured funding from the William Penn Foundation to hire an Assistant Archivist, allowing for Saturday open hours. She also worked to strengthen relations between the Chestnut Hill Historical Society, the Germantown Historical Society, and the Springfield Township Historical Society, serving on the boards of the latter two for over a decade.

Her most visible accomplishments are her three photographic history books: Chestnut Hill (with co-author Thomas Keels), Chestnut Hill Revisited, and Mount Airy. She gathered material from repositories all over Philadelphia. She solicited photographs and stories from area residents, uncovering previously undocumented information, broadening the understanding of our community’s social history, and extending the Conservancy’s reach to a new group of people. These books have preserved valuable historical photographs and narratives that might otherwise have been lost.

Liz led the award-winning restoration of the historic Yeakel Cemetery after planning a public program about 18th-century Chestnut Hill. “I learned of the hidden Yeakel Cemetery in Wyndmoor and, by coincidence, met Jack Yeakel there, a ninth-generation descendant,” she recalls. This led to the creation of the Yeakel Cemetery Preservation Committee and a decade-long effort to save the cemetery from deterioration, raising over $80,000 to catalog, repair, and conserve gravestones, remove problem trees, re-grade the site, rebuild the wall, and erect a historic marker.

Alex Bartlett, who has succeeded Liz as the Conservancy’s Curator and Archivist, highlights Liz’s push for technological advancements: “Migrating our data into PastPerfect [software] 24 years ago was critical. It allowed us to create a searchable database and helped establish a long-term exhibit, Discovering Chestnut Hill: Rural Village to Philadelphia Neighborhood.”

Mentorship and Legacy

Over the years, Liz mentored more than 85 volunteers and student interns who processed an ever-expanding collection of photographs, maps, drawings, letters, records, and other community documents. Liz emphasizes the importance of forging relationships in her work: “It is important to respond to donors and researchers promptly as we are a community service organization.”

Alex Bartlett first met Liz in 2009 when he responded to an article she wrote about seeking volunteers. “Liz has many attributes that contributed to her success here at the Conservancy and the success of our Archives, including her focus on accuracy and her love of the history of our area,” Alex says. “She totally ‘gets’ Chestnut Hill!”

“When I came to the Conservancy, I found a remarkable organization that integrated preservation, conservation, and archival collections,” said Lori Salganicoff, Executive Director of the Chestnut Hill Conservancy. “The Archives, developed under Liz’s professionalism and guidance, set us apart from similar organizations, strengthening advocacy efforts and enabling programs like Night of Lights. Liz’s work has created a lasting legacy that continues to grow, helping the Conservancy and the community better appreciate and protect our treasures. I’m excited to see where it goes from here.”

Looking Ahead

In retirement, Liz looks forward to spending more time painting, creating ceramics, gardening, and working on other projects. She also expresses confidence in the future of the Chestnut Hill Conservancy Archives under Alex’s leadership. “The Conservancy is fortunate to have Alex leading the Archives. He has deep roots in the community and has been here for 15 years,” she says. Liz feels a deep responsibility to the many who entrusted the Conservancy with their precious photographs, records, and other items. Liz plans to stay connected through volunteering on various projects.

Final Reflections

Liz appreciates the many board members and volunteers who saved old photos, documents, blueprints, etc., from Chestnut Hill’s past. She is grateful for the support and thanks from so many people who share her appreciation for what makes Chestnut Hill special. Liz’s legacy includes not only the Archives she helped to build and preserve but also the people she mentored and inspired.

Read in Chestnut Hill Local

Illuminating the Life of Louise Reid

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Louis Reid and her dog Timmy, 1942.
Chestnut Hill Conservancy Archives.

Thursday, March 4, 2024
By Tatiana Paden, Executive Office and Archives Coordinator
Andrew Jarvis contributed to this article.

Domestic work was among the few occupations available to Black women in the first part of the 20th century. And in Chestnut Hill, that was no different. Thanks to the work of Liz and Andrew Jarvis, we have the documented life story of one of those women, Louise Reid. On Sunday, January 10th, 1988, Andrew Jarvis sat with Louise and recorded her life story. 

Louise Reid was born in Burkeville, VA, in 1906, the second youngest of five siblings. Her mother died when she was young, and so her father moved her and her siblings to live with their aunt and uncle in Powhatan, VA. She spent her childhood growing up on their farm and attended a small local schoolhouse for a few years until it was closed down. Her uncle and aunt were very humble and simple people. Her aunt, who was a freed slave, never got the chance to get an education and didn’t have any children of her own. Louise realized that her aunt did the best that she could for them. 

Louise’s favorite thing when she was young was sewing. She taught herself to sew by hand. Cutting up anything she could get her hands on around the house. Her aunt was not too fond of it, as once she cut up her bonnet to make a dress for her doll. Her passion for clothes-making ignited after she got her first doll as a gift from her oldest sister.

“She wasn’t around much after our mother died…she used to come down and bring me nice little dresses and things, so she brought me a doll, a great big doll like that…and I was so proud of it. And I always liked dolls because I like to make clothes for them.” Once Louise was old enough to work, she left the farm and took the train to Richmond, working as the nanny for a doctor with three sons and one daughter. At 16, Louise moved to Flushing, New York. She started working for the Melcher family after the woman hosting her saw an ad in the paper. This job was the start of a lifelong change for Louise. “I stayed with Mrs. Blannon three years…but all my happy days were after I came to your grandmother,” Louise told Andrew. When she first started working for the Melchers, she only had experience in childcare, less so cooking. The Melchers paid for Louise to take cooking classes, which she used to her advantage. Bill and Clarissa Melcher had two daughters:  Deborah “Debbie” and Sally. Louise scratched her sewing itch by creating clothes for the Melcher girl’s dolls. A full photographed catalog of her creations is available in the Conservancy’s Archives collection. 

Over the years, Louise and the Melchers would move a couple of times. First to West Orange, NJ, and settled in Chestnut Hill by the 1930s.  During the Great Depression, Bill Melcher lost his job at Baldwin Locomotive Works and struggled to support the family. Even through this hard time, Louise decided to stay. “I stayed on, yes…because I tell you I didn’t mind, I didn’t have anywhere special to go either, so I was glad they was willing to let me stay on, you know?” she continues, “It would have been so hard for me to go and get some new job because by that time I had got very well adjusted to the family. It would have been hard for me to go off and find somewhere else.” While unemployed, Bill found a way to pay her $5 weekly until he found a new job at the Smythe Paper Company. 

Louise continued to work for the Melchers as the years went on. Debbie and Sally would go on to have children of their own. She would care for their grandchildren as she cared for their mothers whenever they visited their grandparents’ house. 

By the 1960s, Louise started taking summer vacation bus trips through the Chestnut Hill Travel Agency. On one trip, she began to notice the racial discrimination she experienced when traveling. “It never occurred to me…I made my arrangements with the lady…and I did ask her…will any colored be in the group…at first I wasn’t scary or nothing, but I felt a little funny…of course, the people was real nice, but some of them was looking at me, you know, but I didn’t let it…I always try to be nice to people.” She was always the only Black person on each bus tour she went on, but she had no problem with that. She would send postcards to the family while she was away, sharing her experiences as she traveled from Tennessee to California and even Canada. 

After 52 years of working for the Melcher family, Louise would move from their house in Chestnut Hill to her own home in Germantown. Louise attempted to reconnect with her family in Virginia a few times but decided to stay in Philadelphia. She lived a happy, humble life until she passed away in 1994. Her ashes were interred beside Bill and Clarissa Melcher’s at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. “I hope I said something that amounts to something…my life wasn’t exactly a happy one when I was a little child, but I had to live through it anyhow…but I am very happy and like my apartment here. I’m very happy now.”

Read in the Chestnut Hill Local

Building a More Complete Conservancy Archive

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Thursday, February 8, 2024

One of the wonderfully unique things about the Conservancy’s Archive is how locally complete its history is, from a house call in 1910 to the triumphs of a local legend like Grace Kelly. We aim to capture the subtle narratives of as many individuals as possible, encompassing the experiences of the local Black community. Every person deserves to have their life immortalized adequately for future generations.

We at the Conservancy ask that anyone in the Chestnut Hill community with old photographs, newspapers, letters, and ephemera associated with the Black community consider adding them to the Conservancy’s archives. The existing archive, however, does contain a surprising amount of information. 

And this week, in celebration of Black History Month, the Conservancy introduces a part of that archive with local basketball legend Vincene “Vinnie” Morris, a 1994 Philadelphia University Athletic Hall of Fame inductee who was a three-time All-America selection while playing for Philadelphia “Textile” University’s women’s basketball team, now the Jefferson University Rams.

Morris, named All-American from 1984-1986, holds the single-season rebound record with 374 in 1983-84. She scored a total of 2,180 points, making her the second-highest scorer in the school’s history and fourth all-time with 148 blocked shots and 209 steals. 

After she graduated, Morris became a Philadelphia Police officer, made a career on the force, and eventually retired with the rank of sergeant. As a certified field training officer, she taught and supervised police personnel on community policing and conflict resolution. 

Morris concluded her policing career as a supervisor of the 23 Police Athletic League (PAL) centers throughout Philadelphia. These centers provided a safe haven for children in high-crime areas with structured programming, educational assistance, and athletic experiences.

Later, Morris relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, where she became a successful real estate broker.  She focuses on helping people from underrepresented communities buy, sell, and rent properties throughout North and South Carolina. 

Although she is no longer a Philadelphia resident, Morris remains a devoted Eagles fan and proudly represents her Philly pride.

For further information on donating objects to our collections, please contact Alex Bartlett at alex@chconservancy.org.

Growing the Conservancy’s Archives in Celebration of Black Heritage

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By Tatiana Paden, Executive Office & Archives Coordinator

As the Chestnut Hill Conservancy calls upon residents to contribute old photographs, newspapers, letters, and ephemera associated with the Black community, it celebrates the existing archive’s wealth of information, reflecting the diverse tapestry of Northwest Philadelphia’s history. Within this mosaic of stories lies the remarkable journey of Frederica Massiah-Jackson, born in 1951, whose life and accomplishments have left an indelible mark on Philadelphia’s legal and academic realms.

Born in 1951, Frederica Massiah-Jackson embarked on a journey that transcended mere professional achievements, resonating deeply within the fabric of Philadelphia’s legal and academic spheres. A product of Chestnut Hill College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, she emerged as a beacon of resilience and trailblazing tenacity.

Her early career echoes a tale of determination as she navigated the corridors of justice, serving as a law clerk for Robert N.C. Nix, Jr., before striding at the Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley law firm. But in 1981, at 30, Massiah-Jackson etched her name into history, standing as the lone Black woman candidate in The Common Pleas Court Race.

Reflecting on those early days, she remarked, “I started off young… the double minority candidate… we have to let lawyers and defendants know that we won’t let society be ruled by a small minority of violent criminals,” as noted in the May 14, 1981, Chestnut Hill Local. Her victory in 1983 marked a pivotal moment, as she became the first Black female judge to preside over civil jury trials in Philadelphia’s courts, a testament to her unwavering resolve and dedication to justice.

Beyond the bench, Massiah-Jackson’s influence extended far and wide. From her tenure as President Judge from November 2000 to January 2006 to her role as Chief Counsel for the Senate Insurance and Business Committee, she left an indelible mark on the legal landscape. Yet, her impact transcended academia, as she imparted her wisdom as a Legal Studies and Business Law teacher at the prestigious Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Her illustrious career, accolades, and honors adorned her path, from the NAACP’s Cecil B. Moore Award in 2010 to her inclusion among the esteemed women of color in the book Voices by the PA Commission for Women in 2005. A stalwart in her community, Massiah-Jackson remains actively engaged, lending her expertise to organizations such as the Forum of Executive Women, the Delaware Valley, Pa. Chapter of The Links, Inc., and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

In 2021, the culmination of her journey was recognized with the bestowment of an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law, a testament to her enduring legacy and unwavering commitment to excellence. Frederica Massiah-Jackson stands as a symbol of progress and a beacon of hope, inspiring generations to come with her remarkable story of resilience and triumph.

For more information on donating objects to Chestnut Hill Conservancy collections, please contact Alex Bartlett at alex@chconservancy.org.