In the days before he died, Richard "Dick" Wilson was surrounded by what he loved best: family, nature and geology.
Wilson, who founded Tohono Chul Park with his late wife, Jean, was nearing the end of a two-week Colorado River rafting trip through the Grand Canyon when he developed an infection and had to taken by helicopter to a Flagstaff hospital where the 80-year-old died Tuesday surrounded by his family.
The rafting trip - part family reunion, part celebration of his grandson's high school graduation - was something Wilson had been looking forward to for a year.
"He had a blast," said daughter Suzie Horst. "It's so hard to lose him, but … he was having a good time, loving the rocks, loving being with his family. It wasn't a bad way to go."
Wilson, the son of a Texas oilman, was a geologist who studied at Yale and Stanford. He and Jean came to Tucson in 1962 when Wilson accepted a teaching job at the University of Arizona, a position he retained until retirement. Jean died Oct. 4, 2009.
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In 1966, the couple began piecing together patches of desert property to save it from commercial development. Eventually they acquired the 37 acres that became Tohono Chul Park, near the corner of Ina and Oracle roads. The Wilsons and their children lived in the home that is now the park's Tea Room.
"We can go back to Tohono Chul now and point out were our bedrooms were," Horst said.
During the nearly 20 years the family lived on the property, they began carving paths that meandered through the desert acreage and placing markers near plants and bushes that identified the different species.
"He brought us all up to be interested and curious about the world in all kinds of ways and it was a fun connection to have with him," Horst said.
In 1979, Jean opened a business on the eastern boundary, the Haunted Bookshop. In the '80s, the couple established the nonprofit Foundation for the Preservation of Natural Areas to promote the conservation of desert regions and educate the public about arid lands and responsible water use. On April 19, 1985, Tohono Chul Park was formally dedicated. With the acquisition of additional acreage, the park now encompass 49 acres and features demonstration gardens, a recirculating stream, a geological re-creation of the Santa Catalina Mountains, ramadas and areas with special plantings of arid-adapted vegetation were developed.
"He was an extraordinarily kind, smart and generous human being," said Christine Conte, executive director at Tohono Chul Park. "Everything he did, everything he gave, he did with goodwill and good intent and he put so much of himself into it. What he gave was so much more than money. Most people don't realize the many, many ways these people have touched our lives."
In 1990, the Wilsons moved to Northern Arizona. They donated their homestead at Hart Prairie outside of Flagstaff and their Muleshoe Ranch in the Galiuro Mountains, about 30 miles from Willcox, to the Nature Conservancy. They established a summer camp for city youth and later donated land to the Flagstaff Unified School District. The couple helped support the Museum of Northern Arizona, which was founded by Dick Wilson's uncle, Harold S. Colton. And they set up scholarships for college-bound students.
"It was a long life of doing good things for people," Horst said.
Wilson is survived by his six children: Horst, Winnie Hanseth, Bob Currey-Wilson, Mark Wilson, Amanda Wilson, Soonie McDavid, and five grandchildren. The family plans to have a Flagstaff memorial in the autumn.
Did you know?
Richard Wilson's family has a legacy of preservation and exhibition. His great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), was a saddlemaker, silversmith, inventor, watchmaker and student of artist Benjamin West.
Peale was the most prominent portraitist of the Federalist period and is credited with the earliest-known portrait of George Washington (1772). In 1786 he founded the Peale Museum for the study of natural law and the display of natural history and technological objects, housed in Philadelphia's Independence Hall. It was the first major museum in the U.S. and included collections of Peale's paintings, Indian artifacts and specimens such as the first complete skeleton of an American mastodon.
SOURCE: Tohono Chul Park
Contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com or at 573-4191.
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