When I read of Nina Leopold Bradley’s passing earlier this week I felt a deep loss. But, almost in the same moment the emptiness was filled by a fifteen-year-old memory, one that I’m incredibly lucky to carry with me.
In the spring of 1996, I was just starting an internship with the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo just down the road from the Aldo Leopold Foundation. That year, like most others, Nina hosted a home-cooked lunch for the interns of both organizations. While I’d read a A Sand County Almanac, her father’s best known work, I did not yet understand how those essays and the philosophy behind them would offer a path and a touchstone throughout my life. On that day, Nina opened that door.
Nina had a sparkle in her eye. The sparkle you see just before someone winks at you. I always imagined that with her eyes she was saying, “You and me, we’re in on the same secret.” In her presence that day, I felt like I was the only person on earth and together we were sharing the secret joys and wonders of the natural world.
But, it seemed to me that Nina’s greatest passion was to never let that joy and wonder be a secret. Her gift was that she could, and did, inspire young and old to explore the forests, savannas, prairies, and wetlands; to learn from them all we could; to share what we learned; and to act on that new found knowledge.
Nina obviously lived a powerfully rich and productive life. That’s a beautiful thing. Even more beautiful is that her spirit will live on through the good works of the Aldo Leopold Foundation and through the work of those she inspired with her gift. I hope to do justice to the gift she gave me 15 years ago.
–Mike Strigel, executive director of Gathering Waters Conservancy
