Mark, I believe your assessment that the older female cavers disappeared or dropped out - or became more cautious and lived longer - is correct. Of the 5 in the Temple Cavers from 1973, I was the only one who continued to actively cave for very long once away from a grotto! Yet, once I had a child, I quit rope work. Of course, being married to my cave man kept me totally involved in that world! Once many graduate, start careers, marry and possibly have kids, the female caver’s priorities probably change just by the nature of what they do and who they are to their family. Not as easy to say “honey, I’m going on a cave trip, so you need to watch the kids and take care of everything else” when you are the wife/mother figure in the relationship. Especially if you married a non-caver! Many jobs do not have extensive leave time. Single female cavers might have to choose work over recreation to survive - or choose work that is not close enough to great cave areas to stay active. I remember a number from the late 60’s - 70’s forward who could fit these statistics and are probably alive and as well as their particular health situation allows, wherever they are today. Some will be cavers at heart till they pass, but are no longer active. Others may just have chalked up that time as one of many passing life experiences. Hard for true old time cavers to see this, but life happens, and can change one’s perspective. So, the statistics don’t have all the variables.
Mimi Jasek NSS 15206 PS In going through some stuff recently, we found our TSA membership cards from back in the late 70’s or early 80’s!! Talk about memory cave lane 😊 Sent from my iPhone > On Nov 5, 2019, at 5:03 PM, mmin...@caver.net wrote: > > I've been involved with organized caving since 1968, and there has always > been way more than 9% female cavers involved. It seems unlikely to me that > cavers have simply forgotten about their deceased female members. Perhaps > female cavers dropped out and disappeared at a higher rate or have been more > cautious and thus lived longer. Even so, it does seem unreasonable that the > differential would be so large. > > Mark Minton > mmin...@caver.net > >> On 2019-11-05 16:33, Diana Tomchick wrote: >> I would like to know, perhaps from someone that was around “way back >> when”, why there are only 8 female cavers listed in the Hall of >> Texas and Mexico Cavers, out of a total of 88 names. That works out to >> 9.1% of the total population. >> As I wasn’t around back when a lot of these people passed on, I >> can’t speak as to whether that’s representative of the Texas and >> Mexico Caver population, but maybe it was. >> Diana >> ************************************************** >> Diana R. Tomchick >> Professor >> Departments of Biophysics and Biochemistry >> UT Southwestern Medical Center >> 5323 Harry Hines Blvd. >> Rm. ND10.214A >> Dallas, TX 75390-8816 >> diana.tomch...@utsouthwestern.edu >> (214) 645-6383 (phone) >> (214) 645-6353 (fax) >> On Nov 5, 2019, at 4:27 PM, William R. Elliott <speodes...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> EXTERNAL MAIL >> Dear Texas Cavers, >> I just updated The Hall of Texas and Mexico Cavers again, at >> http://cavelife.info/hall/hall.htm >> I edited and uploaded 43 new obituaries and 4 revised ones. Some of >> these came from the old page of 2010, but I added photos and correct >> dates whenever I could. >> This now takes us back to about 1980 and Chuck Stuehm. My goal is to >> get all of the rest done back to 1960. >> You can now read about really interesting cavers like John Fish >> (passed away 24 October), A. Richard Smith, Chuck Stuehm, Joe Ivy, >> Richard Albert, Barry Beck, Randy Waters, Rod Goke, Stan Moerbe and >> others. Look for your friends, and the "Lost Cavers" at the end of the >> page, people for whom I need more information. >> Thanks to all who sent material and photos. I appreciate it. >> WILLIAM R. (BILL) ELLIOTT >> speodes...@gmail.com >> 573-291-5093 cell > _______________________________________________ > Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com > Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: > http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ > http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
