Nora Skillern Interview, 2006

Nora Skillern, a member of the Shaker Lakes Women's Committee (Friends of Shaker Lakes), discusses her personal experiences and philanthropic roles at the Shaker Lakes Nature Center. Skillern details fundraising campaigns for the Center, and credits her interest in outdoor recreation to her background as a child growing up in England, where she visited metropolitan parks and learned to garden. Skillern also discusses working for the English colonial government in Africa during the era of decolonialization, and her childhood experiences in England during World War II.

Participants: Skillern, Nora (interviewee) / Sack, Mark (interviewer)
Collection: Shaker Lakes Nature Center
Institutional Repository: Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection

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Shaker Lakes Nature Center

Shaker Lakes Nature Center

The Shaker Lakes Nature Center Oral History Project was initiated by Nature Center founding member Nancy King Smith, with interviews by researchers, students, and public school teachers in collaboration with the Center. Interviews cover a variety of topics relating to the creation of Shaker Lakes and the Nature Center, as well as to the broader issues in wildlife preservation and environmental education. Although the Shaker Lakes were man-made (serving as a major part of the development of…