Day 67: A memorable encounter

Marguerite “Peg” Lindsley, image courtesy of the National Park Service.

“Thur 6/19 I felt much better yesterday morning so I hike merrily on, but it was cloudy y after a couple hours it started raining but I happened to pass an old deserted shack y stopped there while the worst got over then I hiked a few more miles but finally it got to raining hard again so as I just passed a little tow I dripped in to the restaurant y had a warm cup of coffee. While I was there a young lady came along driving a motorcycle, she was wearing boots, slicker coat y sou’wester y the rain had been beating in her face till she was al flushed. She stopped to die down her sidecar as it was bouncing too much, empty. I had a chat with her after I finished my coffee. She had been driving all the way from Philadelphia a few days before. She was the real thing, most self-sufficient young woman I had seen for a long time, she was one in a thousand that I liked right away, y I have been kicking myself for a silly ass never mind for not getting better acquainted or getting her name y address.”

A huge Thank You to the author Barney Mann, whos dogged detective work connected the dots between Pete Parsons rainy day encounter with Marguerite Lindsley. A year after her run-in with Parsons, Lindsley became the first permanent female Park Ranger at Yellowstone National Park. The National Park Service has a nice write up on Marguerite here.