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May 1895
On May 21 Arthur C. accompanied his mother, Dr. Harriet Foster Pillsbury, to hear Susan B. Anthony speak. Miss Anthony was attending the second annual session of the Women's Congress of the Pacific Coast. Miss Anthony was delighted to be introduced to Dr. Harriet's younger son, Arthur, and inquired into Dr. Harriet's medical practice. Recalling her own trip to Yosemite years before she suggested Arthur make sure he see it as soon as possible for its own exalting beauties and because was a photographer.
The paper local to Stanford, the Palo Alto News, reported on 24 May, Friday, ``Next Wednesday, A.C. Pillsbury and Frank Watson, `95. Will leave for Yosemite and Kings River Valley on their wheels. They will carry with them their camping outfits, consisting of aluminum cooking utensils, 32 calibre rifle and shotgun combined, blanket, camera and fishing tackle, whole outfit weighing about ten pounds apiece. They expect to be gone about three weeks and anticipate a pleasant trip. Mr. Pillsbury will ride a 16 - pound rambler."
1895 - First Trip to Yosemite
The trip grew out to include a cousin, Bernard Lane, who was then attending Stanford from the East Coast. But the journey was life-changing for Arthur.
Standing in a meadow looking down toward the center of Yosemite Valley, wildflowers up to his waist, Arthur C. Pillsbury fell in love with the wildflowers, and with the intricate world of all living things. From that day forward he put himself and his genius for engineering at the service of persuading others to extend their vision of the world to an understanding of nature which included all life.
In each of our lives there are moments like this. Arthur mentions in his later writing bringing a specimen of Snow Plant back with him to Palo Alto, which you see here in its natural environment.