December 30, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

News Digest

Lois Crozier Hogle, a key co-founder of the Committee for Green Foothills and the Peninsula Conservation Center, died Dec. 27 at the age of 92.

Known for 40 years of "gracious activism" on behalf of the environment and foothills protection, she was in her Palo Alto home and surrounded by family when she died.

A native of the San Joaquin Valley, Hogle traced her love of hills and nature to summers she spent at Huntington Lake, northeast of Fresno, as a child.

Following her father's death when she was 15, the family moved to Glendale. In 1932 she entered Glendale Junior College, then enrolled in the University of Redlands, from which she graduated in 1936 with a degree in economics. She later earned masters' degrees in education and social work.

In a 2001 interview with the Palo Alto Weekly, she credited the critical-thinking skills she developed in college with launching her passion as an activist.

"I wanted to save the world," she said. "And I guess I must have meant it, because I've been active ever since, trying to save things and do things that would make a difference."

After college, Hogle was elected state chairman of the California Youth Legislature, the western branch of the American Youth Congress, and joined a delegation to Washington, D.C., where she met First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She later worked for the National Youth Administration, a Roosevelt agency.

In 1943, Hogle began a six-month job raising student war-relief funds on college campuses, visiting a hundred campuses and traveling to Europe to see the results of the war-relief efforts there.

Following a job as executive director for the Rocky Mountain region of the national YWCA, she married George Hogle in 1946 and moved to England for four years.

In 1959, the Hogles moved to Palo Alto and eventually settled into a home in the lower Palo Alto foothills.

In 1962, she joined 28 others in co-founding the Committee for Green Foothills, an environmental group whose first of many battles was against Pacific Gas & Electric Company.

Her other community involvement included work with the PTA and Stanford YWCA. She also enjoyed exploring her Quaker beliefs, visiting a retreat center in Boulder Creek many times.

In 1988, she embarked on a new venture -- writing and editing a book based on interviews with college-educated American Indians. The book, "Surviving in Two Worlds: Contemporary Native American Voices," was published in 1997 by the University of Texas.

In 2002, in honor of her years of activism, she was named Outstanding Citizen Volunteer and awarded the Tall Tree Award by the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce.

"I'm often stopped on trails, and people express appreciation for the foothills, and for this environment that is here," she said in the 2001 Weekly interview. "I remember many times walking the Skyline and planning what we were going to do. In a way, we've done it -- and I think we've done it because we kept our enthusiasm for it."

She is survived by two sons, Allan of Sebastopol and Steve of Healdsburg; a daughter, Francie Kelley of Los Angeles; and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held in February. The date and time are pending.

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