Woman Of The River: Georgie White Clark, Whitewater Pioneer

Acknowledgments

r1 have had the generous help and cooperation of many people in V getting this book together. Karen Underhill and the staff at Cline Libr~ry, Northern Arizona University, got me started and helped along the way by guiding me through the Georgie Clark collection and putting me in touch with Rosalyn J. (Roz) Jirge. This book would have been incomplete without the input and help from Roz. She not only told me of her own experiences, but collected others' diaries, did interviews , transcribed tapes of my interviews, and supplied me with names and addresses of passengers and boatmen that were invaluable in my research. She also read and commented on more than one version of the manuscript. William P. Frank, associate curator of Western Manuscripts at the Huntington Library, was extremely helpful in guiding me through the Marston collection. Deborah Whiteford generously shared her interviews with Georgie, as well as her research file. My daughter Beth Davies went through the Harry Aleson collection at the Utah State Historical Society and sent me copies of Georgie's letters to Aleson and other references to Georgie. lowe thanks to the Grand Canyon River Guides Association for inviting me to their meetings and outings, where I mingled with and interviewed many people who knew Georgie, and where I learned more about the Grand Canyon and the river community. My thanks also to the Colorado Plateau River Guides. Orville Miller, long-time boatman and friend of Georgie, invited me to reunions at his home in Sacramento for friends of Georgie. Not only was I able to do interviews while there, but I felt the love and devotion that many people had for Georgie. ;dii My niece, Shannon Cruthers of Denver, searched the records there, which revealed that most of Georgie's early Hfe was spent in that area. Roy Webb and others filled me in on Georgie's eightieth birthday party at the Hatch warehouse at Marble Canyon. I am especially grateful to Dr. William Phillips, retired professor of history at Arizona State University, for reading different versions of the manuscript and guiding me in the proper form of a work of this nature. He also allowed me to go with him and his family group on a float trip through Grand Canyon. Without the sixty or more people who agreed to interviews and supplied copies of their logs and diaries, this book would not have been possible. I wish to thank all of them. I am grateful to Beky Quintero for reading and copyediting the final version of the manuscript . lowe a special debt of thanks to two readers for Utah State University Press for their valuable comments and recommendations to have the book published. Thomas Zajkowski of the University of Utah made maps, and the University of Nevada Press allowed use of other maps. Last but not least, I want to thank editorJohn Alley for the yeoman work he did in comparing the long and short manuscripts to get the final version together. I apologize to those I have failed to mention . Any mistakes in this work are mine alone. Colorado River aasln ...-. River Basin Boundary o 30 60 90 120 Miles Nevada /' ...... ..- "'r Needles GuffOt C.,ffomla '. ') t .G;~~"River....... WYOming··~.,. "'J ......... MURRIETA '91 H'om Rough-Water Man: Elwyn Blake's Colorado River Expeditions, by Richa1'd E. Westwood. Copyright © 1992 by University ofNevada Press, Used with permission, Georgie \\'hite and Harry Aleson ready for their 1945 swim of the Colorado River. Harry A/eson Collection, C-J87. Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society, all rights reserved. Georgie \\'hite and Harry Aleson demonstrate wrist lock that held them together during their Colorado River swim of 1945. Hairy A/eson Collection, C-J87. Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society, al11'ights reserved. ...