By Starr Munro Riverbend News
Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born in 1890 and moved to Miami as a young woman when the city's population was still under 5,000 to work for her father, the first publisher of The Miami Herald. Today, she is most well-known as the savior of the Everglades. Her book The Everglades: River of Grass is cited as the main reason that the State of Florida began seeing the Everglades as an integral part of Florida and not another swamp to tame and drain. Before she was a published author, Douglas was an early suffragette, a young woman and reporter who was unafraid of the world.
When she was featured in the "Great Floridians" film series, she recalled being a young reporter at her father's paper. At the time of the interview, she was 95. But behind her thick glasses, you can still sense a mischievous twinkle. The film opens with her telling a story about America entering World War I. Her father sent her to the recruiting office to do a story about the first woman to enlist in the Naval Reserve. She came back and said, "Father, I got the story. But the first woman to enlist was me."