Los Altos Town Crier
January 4, 2006

Lois Crozier Hogle: Lifelong advocate for the environment

By Joan Garvin

Longtime Los Altos Hills resident Lois Crozier Hogle died in her home of cancer Dec. 27, just six days after her 92nd birthday.

Former president of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District Mary Davey, a friend and fellow conservationist, named Mrs. Crozier Hogle "the first lady of the environment because she has always been on the cutting edge, thinking ahead to the necessary actions to save the foothills." Mrs. Crozier Hogle earned the title through her advocacies and her personal contribution.

Mrs. Crozier Hogle set the standard for commitment to the preservation of the foothills last year when she established her 11-acre property as a conservation easement to be preserved in perpetuity.

The gift is unique in its size, one of the last remaining properties greater than 10 acres in Los Altos Hills, and in the value of the property.

The terms of the conservation easement allow the property, Oak Meadow, to be sold but never subdivided, and the historic home, designed by architects Birge and David Clark, can be modified but never razed.

Mrs. Crozier Hogle pioneered the Peninsula's environmental movement. Her works and legacy surround the community through the Committee for Green Foothills, which she co-founded in 1962. The advocacy group encouraged trails and open space, opposing even Stanford University when necessary to control development in the Hills. She has been an active member of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, the Peninsula Open Space Trust and the YWCA.

On the occasion of her 90th birthday, Mrs. Crozier Hogle named her three favorite non-profit organizations: Hidden Villa, Acterra (the merger of the Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation and Bay Area Action), and the Committee for Green Foothills.

She co-edited Surviving in Two Worlds: Contemporary Native American Voices, in which she expressed her respect for American Indians as "perhaps the first ecologists."

Recently, the Sierra Club recognized Mrs. Crozier Hogle's contribution to the preservation of the Bay Area in its book Legacy: Portraits of 50 Bay Area Environmental Elders.

Mrs. Crozier Hogle inspired others to join her crusade with her passion and dedication, according to Los Altos Hills resident Larissa Keet. "Thanks to Lois, we are much more a community, a neighborhood, a family than we would have been without her example, her enthusiasm, her energy and her vision."

Even her license plate, ECO FREK, reflected Mrs. Crozier Hogle's commitment to her cause — and her sense of humor, according to Los Altos Hills resident and friend Nancy Couperus, who is a fellow advocate for open space and Westwind Barn.

According to Couperus, Mrs. Crozier Hogle was just as interested in social justice as environmentalism. "Lois was driven by the larger politic and the one closer to home," Couperus said. "One of the things that impressed me is that Lois never lost the drive to make things right in the world."

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Los Altos Hills resident Wallace Stegner described Mrs. Crozier Hogle, "Lois has created more than just another environmental group. She has helped create a community of like minds as well as a community of effort."

Mrs. Crozier Hogle is survived by her sons, Allan Hogle of Sebastopol and Stephen Hogle of Healdsburg, and daughter, Francie Kelley of Los Angeles.

A memorial service will be scheduled for late February.

Page last updated September 13, 2010.