SIUSLAW NEWS ❚ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017
www.TheSiuslawNews.com
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Legacy
from 1A
he was closely involved with
over the past decade was the
Siuslaw Watershed Council
(SWC).
Voth was a longtime board
member, retiring in 2016
from the board, but still will-
ing to assist in any way possi-
ble.
Dan Carpenter, Executive
Director of SWC, felt Voth’s
contributions to his organiza-
tion could not be over empha-
sized.
“Wesley was a prime
mover on the board. He had
great insight and knew a lot
about the watershed. He also
knew a lot of people and,
most importantly, how to con-
nect with them and get them
involved,” Carpenter said.
“He was instrumental in our
decision-making process and
in the development and reach
of the SWC.”
Voth spent years working
in the Upriver communities of
Mapleton and Deadwood,
delivering mail to his neigh-
bors.
But Voth was not a typical
mail carrier. He knew most of
the residents who lived on his
route and became friends with
many of them.
His work brought him into
daily contact with the Siuslaw
River, as his customers live
up and down the waterway.
His familiarity with the
river and its inhabitants, both
above and below the water,
was extensive.
Voth cared as much about
the fish as he did about the
birds and the trees. His will-
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ingness to share his observa-
tions, and the ideas generated
by those observations, was
something he grew more
comfortable with as time
passed.
Voth’s column was an hom-
age to earlier environmental-
ists, taking his field observa-
tions and translating them
into a format that others could
easily understand and relate
too.
His “View from Upriver”
column in the Siuslaw News
often felt like the reader was
reading an excerpt from
Thoreau’s “Walden” or John
Muir’s “Steep Trails,” both
cornerstones of modern envi-
ronmental philosophy.
These are books that speak
to humankind’s connectivity
to the planet and highlight the
importance of the smallest
plant or lichen. They take the
position that men and women
are tasked with the steward-
ship of Planet Earth, not its
exploitation.
Voth was the local, modern
version of these pioneering
environmentalists.
On his route, Voth would
often meet with customers
and spend a few minutes dis-
cussing the heron by the
neighbor’s dock that was
limping, or share his observa-
tions on the rushing stormwa-
ter that was causing changes
in fish behavior, making it
more difficult to catch the
elusive creatures.
His participation with local
environmental groups was
long standing and his impact
on others in those groups was
profound.
Voth’s belief in the impor-
tance of continuing to focus
on the struggle to safeguard
the fragile eco-systems in the
Siuslaw Watershed never
ended.
Carpenter
remembers
Voth’s interest in a program
the SWC participates in each
year, in partnership with the
U.S. Forest service.
“He was very interested in
our native plant distribution
program, which is one of our
core programs. We give away
free trees and shrubs to
landowners with land along
local waterways. And Wesley
would monitor the trees and
the shrubs, after they were
planted by the new owners, to
see how they were doing.”
Voth was also a man of
faith, often referring in his
writings to his Quaker roots
as a primary source for his
concern for others.
Issues of social justice
were also important to him.
A column from last year
referred to a speech given by
one of Wesley’s heroes,
Martin Luther King, Jr. The
speech touches on Wesley’s
social concerns and his sense
of his own mortality:
“The most moving speech I
came across, and the one I
find the most relevant to me,
as an old white man near the
end of his life, is the one he
gave to a group of junior high
students in 1967.
1. Have a deep belief in
your own worth; in your own
significance and that you mat-
ter.
2. Determine to achieve
excellence; find your life’s
working be ready to go
through the doors that open
for you.
3. When you decide what
you are going to do, do it
well.
4. Be committed to the
eternal principles of Beauty,
Love and Justice. Don’t allow
anyone to pull you so low that
you hate them. Don’t let any-
one cause you to so lose your
self-respect that you do not
struggle for justice.
5. You have a responsibili-
ty to make your nation a bet-
ter nation in which to live, to
make life better for everyone.
6. You must be involved in
the struggle for freedom and
justice. Do not give yourself
to things that that will not
solve our problems.
These work for me as my
resolutions as I turn 65,
because another thing I share
with Martin Luther King, Jr.,
is a birthday,” Voth wrote.
The unexpected loss of
Voth, a friend and colleague,
was a shock to the newsroom
at Siuslaw News.
However, Voth’s passing
has given all of his friends
and co-workers the opportu-
nity to reflect on the wisdom,
kindness and insights that he
inspired.
His love for the natural
world was a passion and a
vocation that he shared with
any and all that were interest-
ed. His concern for the less
fortunate among us was real
and he gave freely of his wis-
dom and insights.
The passing of Voth was a
major loss for the community,
on many levels, but the posi-
tive impact he made, through
his work and his words, will
last forever.
Neighbor
his shy little creeks.
Wesley came to writing nat-
urally and learned and grew as
a writer over the years.
Like an artist who chooses
his colors carefully, Wesley
savored every word as he
painted his stories. One time he
gently took me to task for
changing the spelling of the
word “grey” in one of his
columns. He was personally
hurt, telling me he had always
spelled it that way and it was a
favorite word.
I was following the
Associated Press stylebook, I
told him, but apologized and
said I would respect his wishes
and never change the spelling
again. (To this day, I use
Wesley’s spelling of “grey.”)
Wesley was not political in
the classic sense of the word,
but he was closely in touch
with political matters that went
against his natural ethics. He
gently wove those issues into
his stories to make points about
how we should treat other peo-
ple and all of life. — and how
we have an obligation to pro-
tect and steward the natural
state for us now and for our
children and future genera-
tions.
Wesley,
through
his
columns, was a spokesman for
our communities and for our
times. This kind and gentle and
quiet man loved everyone and
everything.
He was our Neighbor in
every positive sense of the
word.
I’ll be reminded of him and
of his stories and of his good-
ness when I see the first per-
fectly formed salmonberry of
spring.
from 1A
community in that special
world at the head of tide of the
Siuslaw, the muscular river
that forms the backbone of the
one-time timber and mill com-
munities.
As a contract mail delivery-
man for the postal service,
Wesley was especially suited
to hear and, in turn, to tell the
stories of the people along his
mail route.
On the other hand, and per-
haps more to his liking, he was
a naturalist who loved to detail
all forms of life as they
appeared and carried on around
him. He wrote of the change of
seasons and of the birds and
animals and fishes and trees
and plants that are peculiar to
those hills and that river and
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