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Show 10. hobby was not so marketable as his interest in machines. In Jeanne Carr, he had at least one person who, he hoped, could understand his need to wander in God's fields. THE MACHINE AND THE FLOWER When John Muir went to Madison, he was fortunate in becoming an intimate friend of Ezra and Jeanne Carr. This couple became Muir's second family, and when they moved to Oakland shortly after he took up residence in Yosemite, the relationship continued to deepen and grow. Although Muir credited Dr. Carr with laying before him the "great book of Nature," it was Jeanne Carr who taught him something of the spirit in which the Book might be read. Indeed he may have felt that the relationship with the Carrs paralleled his relationship with his parents. He remembered in later years that his mother had encouraged him to emulate Humboldt and become a world traveller, against his father's wishes. So too, he expressed his hope to become a Humboldt to Jeanne Carr, not to her husband. But the Carrs, unlike the Muirs, were of one mind about most things. They were active Grangers, especially after they came to California. They believed in the agrarian future for the West. They believed in practical education, and in particular encouraged professional training for women. Though Ezra Carr spoke and acted on this educational policy in Wisconsin, and eventually became Superintendent of Education for California, |
