Journey back to the summer of 1935 with me. The setting is Westchester County, New York. A certain Mrs. F.W. Stevens is the proud owner of a large, American Elm tree. The tree is a local legend, and also has national street credit. Unfortunately though, the tree is infected with Dutch Elm Disease, and it is scheduled to be cut down.

Jill Jonnes, in Urban Forests, A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape writes that, “on the afternoon of Saturday, July 13, 1935, when tree man Frank Patterson arrived with his crew to execute her beloved elm, Mrs. Stevens found he was equally distraught. As he told a New York Times reporter, ‘My main interest in life has been trees ever since I was a small child. To put a saw into this tree is the hardest job I have ever had. I delayed it as long as I could, having first destroyed fifteen other elms that are in our contract. Now I am obliged to begin on this one.'” (Jonnes, 124).

Well played, Frank.

In a historic context, the loss of the American Elm to DED was cause for another great depression in the landscape. On a brighter note, in the face of natural adversity, the rampant disease did create jobs and motivated many plant biologists to search for an answer to this devastation of America’s favorite shade tree, advancing thought into plant culture and IPM management as we know it today.

From what Frank Patterson told the New York Times that day, my guess is that he was hardly distraught. Maybe overwhelmed with the workload that he had for DED removals, but no doubt thankful for the work in the midst of a arboreal and economic national crisis. Nonetheless, he represented the idealism of the new American arborist that John Davey had branded more than twenty years prior. Frank Patterson takes his moment in the national spotlight to disclaim any notion he enjoys dealing with the plague of DED-a smooth public marketing program for a tree preservationist-and maybe even a few weeks behind on the schedule, he also apologizes publicly for his enormous workload. We are left with the feeling that Frank Patterson is the right arborist for the job.

“For several hours that day Mrs. Stevens, neighbors, and sympathizers from five nearby states watched as Patterson’s men scaled the tree, swooping about in roped harnesses, sawing off its hefty but graceful branches and dropping them with earth shaking thuds atop a growing pile on the ground,” writes Jonnes (125). Patterson’s tree crew worked 3 full days disassembling and rigging down the great elm tree. I imagine a clean and orderly drop zone, professionals doing what professionals do. Maybe it was the greatest job of their entire career, an epic removal that not only solidified Patterson’s reputation as a fine contractor, but also his climbers and riggers and sawyers as some of the sharpest tree technicians in the country.

All for a hundred and forty seven bucks.

Jones writes that “every part of the cut-up elm would be carted away, saturated with oil, and burned to ash,” (125). This specification, in particular, really got me to thinking. Was it possible that Patterson was simply contracted to saw and rig the tree down safely? Or maybe he, too, was responsible for all of the hauling and burning of the material. Anyway, with DED a dark red dot on the USDA’s radar, and if Patterson was as passionate as he leads on to be in his quote, than I would imagine the crew followed through with incineration and sterilization of the fungus. It was the main protocol for infected trees of the time. I could also imagine the crew in good spirits sitting around that fire.

Either way, that’s a hundred and forty seven bucks, for a multiple-person crew, for three full days.

And yes, I did Google how much $147 in 1935 equals today, in 2017.

A few different results, but all in all about $2700.

‘The hauling and burning must have crushed him’ I thought to myself.

For me, this small incite into the life and business of Frank Patterson illustrated this: even in the shadows of national hardship, and the ultimate demise of the great American elm; at a time when people were living much more frugally than the Roaring decade prior, Frank Patterson is a promising example of how the trade and the craft of the arborist have survived even the most darkest days.

Scaling and swooping about.