Marion Randall Parsons

1878-1953

The college-age Marion learned about the Sierra Club through a classmate, John Muir's oldest daughter Wanda. Marion's first Sierra Club Outing was its third, in 1903. In 1907, she married a Sierra Club board member, Edward Taylor Parsons, who she had met on her first Sierra Club outing. When Edward died in 1914, she became the first woman elected to the board of directors of the Sierra Club. She served in that capacity for twenty-two years.

William Frederic wrote in the Preface to Muir's book Travels in Alaska, "For a number of months just prior to his death he had the friendly assistance of Mrs. Marion Randall Parsons. Her familiarity with the manuscript, and with Mr. Muir's expressed and penciled intentions of revision and arrangement, made her the logical person to prepare it in final form for publication. It was a task to which she brought devotion as well as ability. The labor involved was the greater in order that the finished work might exhibit the last touches of Muir's master-hand, and yet contain nothing that did not flow from his pen. All readers of this book will feel grateful for her labor of love." Her first-person account of this is in heer article, "John Muir and the Alaska Book."

Parosons became a member of the Sierra Club's editorial committee, and sje wrote often for the Sierra Club Bulletin. She wrote of Sierra Club high trips, mountain climbing exploits, and comraderie on the trail, over seventeen major articles in all. She also wrote many book reviews (she was always asked to review John Muir's books in particular).

She had her hand in the Club's conservation activities too, particularly the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916, and also served after her husband's death as Chair of the Le Conte Memorial Lodge Committee, and on other Sierra Club committees.

Reviews of books by John Muir by Marion Randall Parsons:

For more information, see:

Marion Randall Parsons - Photo with Muir, and biographical sketch - Sierra Club History website
"Marion Randall Parsons," Sierra Club Bulletin October, 1953
"Marion Randall Parsons," Chapter 9 of Adventurous Women: The Inspiring Lives of Nine Early Outdoorswomen By Dorcas S. Miller (Pruett, 2000)

Photograph of Marion Randall Parsons courtesy of University of California Bancroft Library.