Kate McCarthy of Parkdale, who throughout her life served in many conservation groups through tireless advocating on behalf of environmental policies and issues, died Tuesday at the age of 98.
In 2002, McCarthy was both a Soroptimists’ Women of Distinction honoree and received the highest award given by the Mazamas Mountaineering Club. McCarthy, one of the founders of the Hood River Valley Residents Committee, was the 41st person given the top award from the Mazamas since the club formed in 1894.
She served on Columbia Gorge Commission, was a member of Oregon Natural Resources Council (now Oregon Wild), a charter member of 1000 Friends of Oregon, founding member of Friends of Mount Hood, and served on the board of Oregon Environmental Council and the board of Friends of the Columbia River Gorge
In a 1996 Hood River News article she wrote for the 10th anniversary of the National Scenic Act, McCarthy said:
“When it comes to the Gorge, my enthusiasm knows no bounds. We have a treasure in our midst, almost beyond comprehension, with such a variety of resources – visual, botanical, geological, historical. I know of no place where the change of climate and scenery is so dramatic as travelling from the rainforest of the western Gorge to the near desert conditions a few miles each way.
“In the 1970s, I was a member of the pre-Scenic Act Columbia River Gorge Commission, a group of people with little money, no authority and no way to protect the heritage of the Gorge.
Despite years of effort, the six gorge counties, the states of Oregon and Washington, and numerous federal and state agencies could not agree on a coordinated, enforceable plan to protect forests, farms, and natural and cultural resources in the Gorge on both sides of the river.
“As a result, it was a crisis-to-crisis battle by citizens to protect the gorge from one inappropriate proposal after another.”
Said her friend, Monica Reid of Parkdale, “Kate was truly a remarkable woman who worked tirelessly to conserve and protect the Oregon landscapes that we love and cherish. She was admired and loved by so many people,”
Reid provided a Kate McCarthy biography to the News. In it, she writes that Kate’s father settled on land four miles south of Parkdale in 1907 and built the Mt. Hood Lodge. Kate spent most of her summers on the land south of Parkdale but then moved to Portland during the school year to attend Miss Catlin’s School for Girls, which was founded by her great aunt and is now Catlin Gable School. During her high school years she and her younger sister, Betty, ran a summer camp for girls on the family property near Parkdale. After high school Kate attended Reed College, Yale Nursing School and Graduate School at Oregon Health Sciences University. On May 2, 1943 she married Gerald (Jerry) S. McCarthy in Portland. She and Gerald raised four sons in the Seattle-Tacoma area and Roseburg, before returning to Parkdale in 1968 to stay.
The 2002 Soroptimist award was for McCarthy’s record of environmental concern; she was a proponent of land use planning in the valley for decades.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m., Dec 13, at the Mt Hood Town Hall.
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