Doris Carmer Jadan (June 18, 1925 – December 20, 2004) was an

environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

teacher, author, and journalist in the

U.S. Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...

Career

Jadan was born in 1925, in

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population of 1 ...

. She graduated from

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

in Louisiana. After taking a vacation to the U.S. Virgin Islands, she moved there permanently in 1955, settling in

Cruz Bay Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands is the main town on the island of Saint John, United States Virgin Islands, Saint John in the United States Virgin Islands. According to the 2000 census, Cruz Bay had a population of 2,743. Community Cruz Bay, locat ...

, Saint John. She began working as a schoolteacher on the islands, first at the Bethany School and then at the Julius E. Sprauve School after it opened in late 1955. Jadan was an early environmental activist and conservationist on the island. She testified before

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

about pollution on Saint John in the 1960s. In 1970, she founded the Environmental Studies Program at the Sprauve School, writing that her aim was the "direct exposure of young Virgin Islanders to a unique Westindian cultural and natural heritage in order to increase awareness of and sensitivity to the changes that threaten the total V.I. environment." She also was involved politically and administratively in the establishment and growth of

Virgin Islands National Park The Virgin Islands National Park is an American national park preserving about 60% of the land area of Saint John in the United States Virgin Islands, as well as more than of adjacent ocean, and nearly all of Hassel Island, just off the Charlo ...

, spoke out against privatization of the Water and Power Authority, and assisted in naturalist studies of local fauna. A persistent community activist, Jadan opposed overdevelopment on the island. She also set a precedent for registering nontraditional vehicles on Saint John when in the 1990s she petitioned the police to let her officially register her golf cart, which she had initially registered as a motorcycle in the late 1970s.

Writing

As part of her work on the Environmental Studies Program, Jadan wrote the book ''A Guide to the Natural History of St. John'' in 1971. She also published several Virgin Islands cookbooks, some of which were co-written with her husband. Jadan worked as a newspaper columnist for several publications including the ''Virgin Islands Daily News'', the ''Tradewinds,'' and the ''St. John Times''. Her ''Daily News'' column "A Child’s Eye View of the Virgin Islands" encouraged children to help preserve the islands' environment as well as their cultural traditions. She herself assisted with efforts to preserve

Virgin Islands Creole Virgin Islands Creole, or Virgin Islands Creole English, is an English-based creole consisting of several varieties spoken in the Virgin Islands and the nearby SSS islands of Saba, Saint Martin and Sint Eustatius, where it is known as Saban Engl ...

; in his 1981 Creole dictionary ''What a Pistarckle!'' the Virgin Islands historian Lito Valls describes Doris Jadan as the "nen" (godmother) of the project.

Personal life and death

Doris married Ivan Jadan in 1951. He was a Russian opera singer who left for the United States before the couple settled in Saint John. After his death in 1995, she memorialized him in two biographies and created a museum to him in her home. The couple had no children. Ivan and Doris Jadan were friends with

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...

and his wife, Kitty, during the Oppenheimers' time on St. John in their later years. She died on December 20, 2004, at age 79. In the media, friends and neighbors suggested that the stress of Jadan's last preservationist fight, against the construction of the Grande Bay development in front of her home, contributed to her rapid health decline.

Selected works

* ''A Virgin Island Cookpot Calypso'' (1965) * ''A Guide to the Natural History of St. John'' (1971) * ''The Virgin Islands Cook House Cook Book'' (1972) * ''V.I. Cuisine With Ivan and Christine!'' (1979) * ''Codeword: Freedom'' (2001)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jadan, Doris 1925 births 2004 deaths American women environmentalists American environmentalists American women writers United States Virgin Islands writers United States Virgin Islands activists United States Virgin Islands women 20th-century American women 20th-century American people 21st-century American women