An expanded and
corrected version of my recent Facebook posting. Thanks to Emogene Bevitt, Pat Tiller and
Cherie Lizarraga for improvements and corrections.
Patricia
Lee (“Pat”) Parker, Chief of the American Indian Liaison Office in the National
Park Service, died on December 16, 2014 at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver
Spring, Maryland. Dr. Parker was 71
years old.
Born
Patricia Lee Sires in 1943, Pat lost her father, Lt. Howard E. Sires, in 1945
when he and his Navy Liberator bomber crew went missing in action over the
South China Sea. Her mother, Billie
Louise Schnebly, then married Navy Chief Petty Officer Griffith H. Parker, Jr.,
who gave his name to Patricia and her sister Charlotte.
Dr.
Parker studied European and American History at the University of California,
Berkeley, where she received her bachelor’s degree and a California teaching
credential. She was a popular high
school teacher in Marin County, California for almost a decade before beginning
graduate studies at San Francisco State University. Married at the time to attorney John Hickman,
she received a Master’s Degree in anthropology and took part in archaeological
and historical studies in various parts of California. Following a divorce, she undertook
postgraduate studies in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr.
Parker’s dissertation research investigated the effects of successive colonial
legal systems on traditional land law in Chuuk, now part of the Federated
States of Micronesia. She lived in Chuuk
for two years, learned the Chuukese language, and became deeply involved with
Micronesian peoples and cultures. She
and Thomas F. King, who she married in 1977, helped mediate disputes between
the U.S. government and Chuukese villagers over construction projects that threatened
the villages’ natural and cultural environments. They also coordinated major
ethnoarchaeological data recovery work done by the villages in advance of those
projects that proceeded after agreements
were reached.
Returning
to the mainland, Parker received her PhD in 1983 from the University of
Pennsylvania. She and King became the
parents of their son Thomas Sires King, and Parker began work for the National
Park Service’s Cultural Resource Management program. Initially hired to help set up the “Certified
Local Government” program of financial aid to local historic preservation
programs, Parker led a series of national meetings to define needs and
directions, drafted program regulations and administrative procedures, and
oversaw the program’s launch. She then
turned to helping Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian groups participate more
fully in the federal historic preservation program, again coordinating meetings
throughout the country. These resulted
in a report to Congress entitled Keepers
of the Treasures, published in 1990.
Congress responded in 1992 with amendments to the National Historic
Preservation Act that expanded and clarified roles in the national historic
preservation program for tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations.
Perceiving
the need for better relations between the National Park Service and American
Indian Tribes, whose ancestral lands the Service in part controls, Parker
proposed creation of a national American Indian Tribal Liaison Office. When the Office was created, she became its
Chief, a position she held until her death.
Dr. Parker was a tireless champion for Native American cultural
interests within the Park Service and beyond.
She was instrumental in securing a homeland
for the Timbisha Shoshone in Death Valley and in resolving many other long
standing issues between American Indian tribes, Alaska Native, and Native
Hawaiian organizations, and the National Park Service. Dr. Parker selected Charles Wilkinson of
University of Colorado, Boulder, a national expert on Indian Law and Public
Land Law, to be the primary instructor for a series of intensive 2-day
workshops on the foundations of Indian law and policy. From 1997 to 2014, she and Wilkinson held
some 30 workshops throughout the country, training close to 1,000 people. While Park Service managers and senior staff
were the primary beneficiaries, tribal speakers were always featured; many
tribal members and other Federal agency senior staff were also included. Participants gained, often for the first
time, an understanding of the special legal, fiduciary, and historical
relationships that exist between tribes and the U.S. government.
Parker led a cultural resources tribal
working group within the Park Service to better coordinate and communicate the
programs and resources available to American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native
Hawaiians. This working group developed
a website to share this information with tribes at www.nps.gov/tribes . The working group also authored a series of
Quick Guides to share core information on key Park Service programs and the
essential legal framework of the National Historic Preservation Program. The Quick Guides are posted on the tribal
website.
Parker was also known for her
co-authorship of National Register Bulletin 38, on how traditional cultural
places can be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic
Places. This bulletin clarified the fact
that the Register’s criteria are inclusive enough to recognize places of traditional
value to tribes and other communities.
Eligibility for the Register requires Federal agencies to take such
places into account in planning land use projects, and to consult about
management alternatives with the communities that value them.
Parker maintained her concern with
Micronesian affairs, helping the Freely Associated States of Micronesia
establish and manage historic preservation programs with National Park Service
assistance. This and her other work with
indigenous groups led her to serve as an advisor to the International Council
on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), UNESCO, and the World Bank.
At her death, Parker was deeply involved
in long term efforts to create a Lakota-administered Tribal National Park on
the South Unit of Badlands National Park, and to finalize regulations
establishing procedures for tribal access to traditional plant resources in
National Park units to which they are historically linked. She was also working to improve U.S. government
consultation practices with American Indian tribes, Alaska Native groups and
Native Hawaiian organizations concerning Indian Sacred Site management and
other matters.
Outside of work, Parker was a dedicated
gardening enthusiast, with an elaborate garden at her home in Silver Spring, and
was active in local horticultural organizations. Beds of bulb flowers whose import from
Holland she organized still grace parks and other public spaces in Silver
Spring and nearby Takoma Park. She was
also talented at needlework; friends and family members will enjoy her
sweaters, caps, socks, and artistic cross-stich for years to come. Late in life she became an enthusiastic
watercolor artist. Early and late she
traveled extensively both on her own and with family members and friends,
visiting her ancestral landscapes in Sweden as well as China, Turkey, Jordan,
Egypt, Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Australia, Fiji, Peru, the United Kingdom, Canada,
the island states and territories of Micronesia, and every U.S. state. Her last trip, in 2013, was a crossing of the
Atlantic aboard the tall ship Star Flyer
from Spain to Barbados, observing a total solar eclipse in mid-ocean.
Dr. Parker is survived by her husband, Thomas F. King and her
son Thomas Sires King, his wife Monica, and granddaughter Olivia I. King, as well
as by siblings Charlotte A. Lizarraga, Griffith H. Parker III, and Stephen J.
Parker and their families, stepchildren Rachel T. King, Joshua M. King, and
Madera K. Clark, plus step-grandchildren Emma and Duncan King, Noah and Jacob
Richards, and Kayla and Tanner Clark.
She was predeceased by her younger sister, Juliet L. Somers, whose
children, Peter Dale Somers and Juliet Somers-Barnes, survive her with their
children.
Memorials are being planned and will be announced. In lieu of
flowers or other tangible expressions of condolence, donations to the Native
American Rights Fund (http://www.narf.org/) are welcome.
