Photos from the WFIWC Archives:
Personnel
Paul Keen, age 69, in his residence
at Lafayette, California, Nov. 1959.
Photo by R.L. Furniss
Frederick Paul Keen (1890 - 1980): Some Recollections by M. Furniss. After I graduated from high school in Waverly, NY, in 1944, I moved to Berkeley, CA, with my mother while I waited to be called into the Army Air Corps. I remained in the Berkeley environs after my discharge in Nov. 1945. My oldest brother, Robert L., had graduated in entomology with a minor in forest management from Syracuse in 1931. He was employed by the Bureau of Entomology and had replaced Keen at the Portland Forest Insect Lab in 1942 when Keen transferred to head the Berkeley FIL. Thus, our family knew of Keen and that he was a bachelor. My father had left the scene in Waverly at the edge of my childhood memory, hence some of us, mainly my sister, rather jokingly hinted that maybe a match could be made. It never happened. Paul waited until retirement when he married Lillian, an architect. She preceded him in death in 1972.
My introduction to Paul was in June 1950. I had graduated in Forestry at U. California and the job market was bleak. I had not planned a career in forest entomology but in desperation, I knocked of Paul's door in the basement of Mulford Hall on campus seeking a summer job. To my surprise, Paul was wanting to hire me on the spot to survey bark beetle mortality in the Sierra Nevada. I then got cold feet, and confessed that I knew little about entomology. He countered that they would teach me all that I needed to know and what they were looking for was a forester who could survey, identify, and measure killed trees. Somebody who could get around in the mountains. Well, I was married and had two children to feed so that is how I got a start in this business on June 19 as a Field Aide GS-4 at $2,875 per annum. On March 30, 1952, I got a raise to Forester GS-7 ($4,205). It was announced by a handwritten note on a 3X5 slip of paper. It read: "Mal, My congratulations on your grade promotion. It was well deserved and I hope will keep the wolf from the door awhile longer. FPK"
My main job was to survey insect infestations, mainly bark beetles, for planning control operations, which were still done mainly by fell-peel-burn but also by salvage logging where feasible. Thus, I did a lot of pacing and sampling after which I wrote reports. Each fall, I also wrote the annual California Forest Insect Conditions report and took the type-written master copy to Sacramento for publishing by the Calif. Div. Forestry. Paul liked my writing. Along with my big ears, I seem to have inherited this quality, there being others of note in my lineage.
Paul retired in 1951 and was replaced by Charlie Eaton. The friendly pats ceased and I was offered a job at Intermountain Station, Ogden, UT in Oct 1954 after which I might just as well have been re-born. But, I will stop there and refer you to my Founders Award address for the thereafter of my career including some mention of Paul. Now, on with my recollections ... after Paul retired, he wrote-up the work (Tech. Bull. 1169) on cone and seed insects (1912-1917) that was done mostly at Ashland, Oregon, where Keen was hired as an Entomological Ranger in 1914 (He was number one on the Civil Service test). One of my regrets is that in 1953 he dropped-in and said that he was going to collect some Monterey pine cones for rearing insects and asked if I wanted to accompany him. I was still low on the ladder and didn't think that I could take the liberty to go. Read: I didn't think. That still brings me sadness to near tears.
My transfer parted us except for a couple visits to his adobe home in Lafayette, CA. We did communicate by an occasional letter and exchanged Christmas cards form 1962-1979. His last Christmas card was written on Dec. 18, 1979, a month after his 89th birthday and 2 months before he died on Feb. 20, 1980. The last time that I saw Paul was in 1978 at Portland during the signing of the just-published book, Insect Enemies of Western Forests by R.L. Furniss and V.M. Carolin, which up-dated Paul's 1950 book. -- Malcolm Furniss --
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