In a farmhouse overlooking the Upper Delaware River, Barbara Yeaman found her life’s calling later than most. At 70, when many were winding down, she set about founding the Delaware Highlands Conservancy, a land trust that would eventually protect more than 20,000 acres of forests, farms, and wetlands. It was, she often said, simply a matter of doing what needed to be done.
Ms. Yeaman, who died on April 6th, aged 100, belonged to a generation that learned to act without fuss or spectacle. Born near Pittsburgh, she had earned her pilot’s license during the Second World War to qualify for the Women Airforce Service Pilots, and later built a career in public education at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her move to Pennsylvania’s rural northeast in the 1980s coincided with bitter conflicts over land use, as the federal government sought to protect the Upper Delaware River. Violence, suspicion, and mistrust clouded the valley.
Where others saw division, Ms. Yeaman saw an opening. Conservation easements—understated, voluntary agreements—would allow private landowners to preserve their property while maintaining their rights. It was an elegant solution that honored both the land and the fiercely independent spirit of its people. In 1994, after a cancer diagnosis sharpened her resolve, she founded the Conservancy with $250 and a conviction that “if you don’t take a crack at something, it may never get done.”
She eschewed the limelight, preferring to “fly beneath the radar,” as colleagues fondly put it, persistently persuading neighbors, raising funds, and steadily building an institution. Solar panels on her farmhouse roof, puppet shows in her Butterfly Barn, and endless hours spent drafting easements spoke more eloquently than any grand speeches could.
The river, she believed, needed friends more than defenders. In Barbara Yeaman, it found both.
Header image: Barbara Yeaman. Credit: Delaware Highlands Conservancy
