A Louisiana Percent for Art–funded sculpture honoring Natchitoches Parish naturalist, author, and educator Caroline Dormon was dedicated on the campus of the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts (LSMSA) this past October. A Path Less Traveled, by sculptors Jeffrey Reed and Jennifer Madden, both of Richmond, California, enshrines Dormon’s extraordinary life story within a “grove” of five stainless steel and bronze sculptures that replicate the shapes and textures of Dormon’s favorite tree, the longleaf pine. LSMSA encourages visitors to enjoy the new sculpture; all guests on campus must first sign in at the front office. 

A Path Less Traveled is the latest in a series of high-profile appreciations of Dormon that have appeared in recent years. The US Forest Service published Caroline Dormon: The South’s Exceptional Forest Conservationist and Naturalist, a 44-page Dormon biography, in 2018. Garden & Gun, a national magazine with 1.6 million readers, featured the preservation of Dormon’s homestead, now known as Briarwood Nature Preserve, in its January 2024 issue. In September, The Cammie G. Henry Research Center at Northwestern State University opened two concurrent exhibits in celebration of the ninetieth anniversary of Dormon’s book Wild Flowers of Louisiana.      

A Path Less Traveled, a sculpture by Jeffrey Reed and Jennifer Madden recently dedicated on the campus of the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts honoring the life and contributions of Louisiana naturalist Caroline Dormon. Courtesy of Chris Jay.

“Although she’s not often counted among the famous women of this parish—those usually named being Cammie Henry, Clementine Hunter, and Kate Chopin—Caroline Dormon is, in my mind, the most important and distinguished,” Dr. Art Williams said during the dedication of A Path Less Traveled. Williams is a retired LSMSA professor who wrote the biographical text featured in the sculpture.    

Dormon’s greatest accomplishment was the US Forest Service’s dedication of Kisatchie National Forest in 1930. Dormon spent more than a decade writing letters, delivering public lectures, and meeting with state officials and foresters about establishing the park. While her role in creating Louisiana’s only national forest is reason enough to consider her among the most influential American naturalists of the early twentieth century, her career is filled with similarly remarkable triumphs.     

She was hired as an Education Specialist by the Louisiana Division of Forestry in 1921 despite having no formal education in forestry (her 1907 undergraduate degree from Judson College was in the fine arts). American Forests reported in 1922 that she was the only woman employed in the entire US forestry industry. In her professional capacity as a forestry educator, she frequently spoke to school assemblies, where she delivered multimedia presentations about the importance of preserving native plants and trees.  

“I put our stereopticon and slides in a Ford car and I am ready to carry forestry in a visible form to every school,” she told biographer Fran Holman Johnson, recounted in The Gift of the Wild Things: The Life of Caroline Dormon (1990).  

She lectured on the threats posed by pesticides and herbicides at a time when the general public was not yet aware of those threats. She wrote letters protesting the appearance of billboards along state highways. Through her constant activism, she came to be seen as a public figure in Natchitoches Parish, frequently appearing in Francois Mignon’s popular “Cane River Memo” column in The Natchitoches Enterprise.  

Dormon was the first woman to be granted associate membership, in 1930, to the Society of American Foresters. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her to serve on the De Soto Expedition Commission in 1935 where she was, again, a lone woman surrounded by men. She was hired by the Louisiana Department of Highways as a beautification consultant in 1940, but she clashed with the State’s nurserymen and left the position after only two years.  

Glimpses of Dormon’s indomitable spirit peek through the public record, as is the case in her letter of resignation to the Forest Service. She and Louisiana State Forester V. H. Sonderegger regularly sparred over petty grievances such as Dormon delivering public speeches without his prior written approval.   

“It is impossible for me to continue under Mr. Sonderegger and retain my dignity and self respect,” she wrote. 

Caroline Dormon at Briarwood with “Grandpappy,” her favorite longleaf pine. Courtesy of USDA Forestry Service, via Wikimedia Commons.

The success of Dormon’s books, especially 1934’s Wild Flowers of Louisiana and 1958’s Flowers Native to the Deep South, made her a frequent guest speaker at garden club meetings and civic luncheons throughout the state. She was a founding member of the Society for Louisiana Irises and was awarded the prestigious Eloise Payne Luquer Medal by the Garden Club of America for her efforts cultivating and promoting the Louisiana iris. The American Horticultural Society recognized Briarwood as a sanctuary for trees and wildflowers in 1961. Despite the fact that she was the toast of garden club society from Shreveport to New Orleans, Dormon bristled at being labeled a “club woman.” She would rather have been up to her elbows in a bog, transplanting an iris, than somewhere sitting in a committee meeting.   

“I will never get people to believe that I love to be alone,” Dormon is quoted in the text that winds through A Path Less Traveled. “Of course, I’m not really alone—with birds, trees, and flowers—and the different voices of the winds, and rain on the shining leaves.”  

Jim Caldwell, public affairs specialist for Kisatchie National Forest, told The Town Talk in 1988 that Dormon was recognized as an authority on Louisiana plants and trees right up until the end of her life.    

“It was one of those situations where there might be a next-door neighbor who didn’t know who she was, yet all of the important people in the world knew who she was,” Caldwell said. 

Shortly before her death in 1971, Dormon’s journalist friend, Francois Mignon, campaigned unsuccessfully for the City of Natchitoches to erect a statue in Dormon’s honor. With the dedication of A Path Less Traveled, that long overdue tribute has finally arrived.  

“I have tried . . . to be a sort of missionary in getting people interested in our fascinating native flora,” Dormon wrote. “It has been a long, slow job, but at last there is an awakening.”  

Chris Jay is a freelance writer from Shreveport, Louisiana. His writing often focuses on the food, people, and culture of northwest Louisiana. Read more of his writing at stuffedandbusted.com.