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Miriam Ella Langdon Alford

 

MIRIAM ELLA LANGDON ALFORD

AAFA #0246

1931 TX –2005 AR

 

From National Water Center website

 

 

NORTHWEST ARKANSAS TIMES

Fayetteville, Washington Co., AR—Monday, 5 December 2005

 

            Miriam Ella Langdon Alford, 73, of Fayetteville passed away Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005, in Fayetteville.

            She was born Dec. 21, 1931, in Dallas to John R. and Susan Landon Alford and was raised in Henderson, Texas.

            Miriam Ella was generous with her time and resources, spending much of her life on projects that benefit the environment, education and the underprivileged. She died peacefully at home, surrounded by her family. Her life touched and blessed so many.

            She is survived by two daughters: Susan McDonald-James of Fayetteville and Margaret Newton of Little Rock; a son, Allen McDonald of Fayetteville; two brothers, John Alford [AAFA #0200] of Austin, Texas, and Landon Alford [AAFA #0002] of Henderson, Texas; and five grandchildren, Dillon, Kaitlyn, Anna, Daniel, and Claire.

            Miriam Ella was a member of Temple Shalom of Northwest Arkansas.

            Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship with burial to follow in Fairview Memorial Gardens in Fayetteville.... Arrangements are under the direction of Nelson-Berna Funeral Home and Crematory in Fayetteville.

 

In another source:

 

National Water Center

Eureka Springs, Carroll Co., AR

 

            Miriam Ella Alford was a major contributor and supporter of the National Water Center. Without her sensitivity, insight and generosity it could never have existed. We miss her so much.

            Miriam Ella Alford died at home in Fayetteville on December 3 at the age of 73 being loved and surrounded by her family. Ella's passing leaves a great legacy of open-heated alliance with so many good and abiding things that no one can even calculate or measure them; the list of things beneficial to the Earth and the life (including us) upon it that would not be here had Miriam Ella not helped to engender and support them goes on and on...

            I, for one, of a great many carry a great heartache that she is no longer with us, and I miss her being with us here on Earth. Not just people has she cared for, and befriended, and who will be living and breathing their thanks to her for many generations into the future. Consider for one instance the great Alford Forest and all the life within it that she gave for us to take care for in her family name.  —Tribute by David Haenke, Director, Alford Forest, Inc., Brixey, MO

 

            The Alford 4400 acre forest in northern Ozark County, MO, named after the Alford Family and Ella, who donated 3200 acres of it to the Ozark Regional Land Trust, and put the rest of it in Conservation Easements for permanent protection with ORLT.

            Miriam Ella Alford was the first major benefactor to AEEA back in 1996 when we were in our infancy. It was a gift that will always be remembered. This gift gave us the confidence to continue. She was a great supporter of environmental education and conservation. We appreciate her generosity and compassion for our natural environment. —Robert McAfee, Executive Director (Volunteer), AEEA - Arkansas Environmental Education Association

 

            Miriam was also the major contributor and supporter of the National Water Center. Without her sensitivity, insight and generosity, it could never have existed. We miss her so much. —Barbara Harmony, Coordinator

 

In another source:

 

One Garden

One Garden, Forest Garden

By David Haenke

 

            Running intermittently up to 4 miles along and in places over three miles to the west of Bryant Creek in Northern Ozark County, in the Missouri Ozarks, is the 4000 + acreage known as "The Alford Forest."

            Land constituting the Alford Forest was purchased in 1945 by John Alford, who, according to daughter Miriam Ella Alford, wanted a place where his children could go as a refuge from city life.

            Miriam Ella Alford is an extraordinary and visionary soul who has supported ecologically and socially responsible causes for decades, and she has a great love for the original family land that we now call "The Alford Forest." Miriam Ella gained controlling ownership of the land in 1975-6, and from that time forward she has done all she can to protect the forest, including, from the late 70’s on, maintaining a dialog with local and regional individuals and organizations who concern themselves with issues of ecological protection and management of forests to see what long term options might be out there for caring for the land as far into future as possible.

            After around 20 years of good stewardship and periodic planning and visioning discussions, Miriam Ella, along with advisors and local residents who cared deeply about the Alford Forest, engaged in a long-term plan to protect and manage the land through a combination of arrangements that included:

 

  • donating 3000 of the acres to the Ozark Regional Land Trust/ORLT
  • working towards putting protection on the rest of the land through conservations easements/CE’s
  • setting aside nearly 1000 acres into ecological protection reserves
  • allowing ecological improvement harvesting of logs, and other timber stand improvement activities, on appropriate areas of the Forest not set aside in ecological reserves.

 

            Starting in 2000, through lease agreements with a non-profit forest management organization, Alford Forest, Inc./AFI (AFI is not organizationally connected with Miriam Ella Alford, and is formally associated with her only through lease agreements), both Miriam Ella and ORLT have engaged AFI to carry out ecological management, including improvement harvesting, on the Forest.

 

In another source:

                       

The Other Economic Summit (TOES)

July 6–8, 1990, Houston, TX: Eco-Feminism

 

Under “Other Participants”:

 

            Ella Alford, Ozarks Resource Center, General Delivery, Brixey, MO 65618; (417) 679-4773. Ella Alford was raised in an affluent East Texas family. A major part of her path has been self-healing as she puts it, "for addictions to peoples, places and things." She has lived in Arkansas and Missouri for 30 years, and has 3 children. She is a founder of the Ozarks Resource Center (formerly New Life Farm), which as been important in establishing the Bioregional Congress. She is also a founding member of the Threshold Foundation.

 

In another source:

 

Ozark Regional Land Trust

“The Ozark Holler” - Summer 2006

 

Alford Memorial CD

 

            At the Ella L. Alford Memorial in Brixey, Missouri in April 2006, a recording was made of the stories and songs. It is on a CD and is available to anyone who wants one. Cost? Nothing! If you want one, email susan@wiseheart.com with your postal address.

 

AAFA NOTES: SSDI confirm the birth and death dates of Ella L. Alford (SS# issued in TX), last residence Brixey, Ozark Co., MO.

            We included the obituary of her brother John Rogers Alford Jr., AAFA #0200, in Texas Obituaries.

            Texas Birth Index, 1903–1997 (Ancestry.com) lists the birth of Ella Langdon Alford in Dallas Co. on 21 Dec 1931. Ella assumed the first name of Miriam later in her life.

            Ella married William Wray McDonald on 18 July 1957. They had three children: Susan Lee, Margaret Alford, and William Allen.

            Ella attended the AAFA meetings in 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, and 1996. She and her brother Landon Alford, AAFA #0002, and the family of D.L. Alford, AAFA #0054, with help from other Texas members, arranged for the reception on Friday night. That set a pattern for future Friday night receptions at the annual meetings.

            Ella was also the AAFA Missouri State Representative when we had that position.

            We published a short biography of Ella’s father, John Rogers Alford Sr., in AAFA ACTION, December 1988.

            A biography of Ella’s paternal grandfather, Egbert Benson Alford, was published in A History of Texas and Texans, Volume III, by Frank W. Johnson (Chicago: American Historical Society, 1914). We reprinted it in AAFA ACTION, Summer 1999.

            Her lineage: Miriam Ella Langdon 1931 TX1, John Rogers 1885 TX2, Egbert Benson 1858 AL3, John Rogers 1810 GA4, Kinchen 1799 NC5, James 1741 NC/VA6, Lodwick 1710 VA7, James 1687 VA8.