Mary Ann "Corky" Matthews

Mary Ann "Corky" Matthews (neé Corthell) died of natural causes on November 2, 2023, following a brief illness. An avid botanist, resolute conservationist and environmental activist, a prolific newsletter writer and editor for a variety of publications, author of the seminal guidebook to the plants of Monterey County, board member of a panoply of non-profit organizations, as well as an ardent rock climber, hiker, backpacker, skier, mountaineer and life member of the Sierra Club and American Alpine Club, she was a Monterey County resident for more than 68 years. She passed peacefully in her Carmel Valley home with daughter Katharine (Kim), son Graham, daughter-in-law Noreen Doyas and devoted caregiver Michele Perry at her side. Her family is grateful for hospice services provided by Central Coast Visiting Nurses Association, and for her other dedicated caregivers over the past decade.

Mary Ann was born in Mill Valley, California in 1930 to Huron DeWitt and Ilyeen Bernice (Remick) Corthell. Nicknamed first "Cor" and then "Corky" by her junior high classmates, she graduated from Tamalpais High School in 1946, then studied nearby at the College of Marin.

Around 1947, a classmate invited Corky to join the Sierra Club and go backpacking. This affiliation inculcated a lifelong love of the outdoors, provided a social network and spurred her to advocate for environmental conservation: Corky was elected as a founding member of the local Ventana Chapter's Executive Board in 1969 and later served as Conservation Chair, edited the "Ventana" newsletter for decades, helped establish the chapter bookstore in Carmel in 1977 and then assist for 28 years, staffed the Sierra Club booth at the Monterey County Fair, took her family to potluck song fests, led hundreds of hikes and backpacking outings locally and in the High Sierras, organized ski tours from the Club's Clair Tappan Lodge atop Donner Pass, and went as far afield as Washington, D.C. to lobby for the Sierra Club.

In 1948, Corky transferred to Stanford University, where she became an enthusiastic member of the Stanford Alpine Club, learning to rock climb. Corky majored in International Relations, double-dated with the then-Sandy Day (later Sandra Day O'Connor) and graduated in 1950.

Corky moved to Yosemite in 1951, working initially as assistant secretary to Mary Curry Tresidder, president of Curry Company; later she was promoted to secretary to the Superintendent of Hotel Division, who was in charge of 12 hotels, including the High Sierra Camps. She had about 10 different additional jobs during her 4+ years in the park. She took movie tickets, was a waitress in the dining rooms at Camp Curry and the Ahwahnee Hotel, handled reservations for the High Sierra Camps – and on more than one occasion, hiked or skied many miles to the camps to carry fresh treats like steaks and ice cream to her coworkers.

Whenever possible between work shifts, Corky headed into the mountains. She scaled crags, peaks and pinnacles throughout the park, including the first ascent of John's Other Chimney with John Ohrenschall in 1953. With a group of four male climbing buddies, in 1954 she drove to Mexico and ascended the iconic volcanoes Popocatépetl (17,887 feet) and Ixtaccíhuatl (17,342 feet). Throughout her life, Corky was unfailingly unassuming and modest about her accomplishments. Regarding this trip, she noted: "The boys likely included me because I owned the only reliable car…" But her climbing bona fides undoubtedly belied that.

Perhaps prescient that the life of a "climbing bum" could not last indefinitely, Corky took the Foreign Service Officer's Exam and applied to work with the Central Intelligence Agency. It was not meant to be, however: she later wrote to the CIA withdrawing her application, on account of her impending marriage…

In 1954 while ski mountaineering, Corky Corthell met her future husband, W.V. Graham Matthews, Jr., himself a distinguished alpinist. After spending a lot of time on a rope together on various climbs in Yosemite, they decided to get formally "hitched" in 1955. They settled in Pebble Beach, moving to Carmel Valley in 1960.

In 1955 the two Matthewses joined a group of Harvard and Sierra Club climbers to ascend various summits in the Selkirk Range of British Columbia; in 1956 they joined the American Andean Expedition to the Cordillera Vilcabamba in Peru.

But after their children entered the scene in 1957 and 1959, Corky and family pursued outdoor activities that were mostly closer to home: summers were hiking and backpacking trips, often back to Yosemite and the Tetons; winters were alpine skiing and back country ski mountaineering; and notably, there was more and more botanizing in the spring. Mountaineering and hut building trips to British Columbia remained on the agenda for several more decades: Corky, Graham and their children were among the climbers/laborers who erected several spectacular backcountry mountaineering/ski lodges, including Battle Abbey in the Northern Selkirks. In her later visits, Corky created and updated an impressive herbarium of Rocky Mountain flora native to the Abbey slopes and cliffs. Corky also taught a backpacking course for many years at Monterey Peninsula College. She considered her profession to be journalism; her longest employment was for a local newspaper publisher.

Over the years, Corky expanded her volunteer career – begun with the Sierra Club – as a conservationist and advocate for environmental preservation. She joined the boards of more than 20 other organizations, including the California Native Plant Society (CNPS), Monterey Pine Forest Watch, Carmel Valley Property Owners Association and Fort Ord Parklands Group. She also worked on the Carmel Valley Master Planning Commission from 1962-1983, which she considered particularly vital to the future of the Valley. As Conservation Chair for the Sierra Club and CNPS local chapters, as well as during her tenure on the State Board of CNPS, Corky wrote hundreds of letters and comments on Environmental Impact Reports, proposed legislation and related measures to elected officials at the local, state and federal level, on topics from endangered species to habitat preservation to rare plants, and testified before the California Coastal Commission. In 2006, Corky was recognized for her 4 decades of service in the furtherance of natural resource conservation with the Volunteer Lifetime Achievement Award by the Chuck Haugen Conservation Fund.

For decades a self-trained botanist, Corky thoroughly enjoyed identifying the flowers she encountered, but she came to recognize the need for a comprehensive flora of Monterey County. She felt she needed further education to undertake such a task, so in 1986 – while serving as president of the Monterey Bay Chapter of CNPS – she stocked the freezer with meals for her husband and commuted weekly to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Corky excelled in her graduate botany courses, although she stopped short of earning a degree. Instead, she felt confident to embark on a massive project: compiling all known plants lists for sites within Monterey County, plus securing permission from publishers to use existing botanical illustrations. Because of its size and environmental diversity, the county has more plant species – over 2300 – than many entire states, so this was a tall order… During this process, Corky was named a 1993 Fellow of CNPS, at that time a distinction awarded to fewer than 80 people state-wide since its inception. CNPS published "An Illustrated Field Key to the Flowering Plants of Monterey County and Ferns, Fern Allies, and Conifers" in 1998; it was hailed as an important tool for botanists and flower lovers alike. In 2015, the 2nd edition of Corky's magnum opus was updated by a colleague to reflect new species and nomenclature changes, and retitled "The Plants of Monterey County: An Illustrated Field Key."

In retirement, Corky continued to enjoy local wildflower hikes with a group of like-minded women, the "Walkers and Talkers"; traveling with her family to Hawaii; visiting botanical gardens from St. Petersburg to Prague to Copenhagen; and cruising the Rhine River, Galapagos Islands, Panama Canal, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean and elsewhere.

She is survived by daughter Katharine (Kim) Matthews (David Massey) of Boulder, Colorado and Washington, D.C., son WV Graham Matthews, III (Noreen Doyas) of Weaverville, California, grandchildren Alex Massey, Robbie Massey, Melia Matthews and Kelvin Matthews, nieces and nephews Cheryl Corthell Blomstrom, David Corthell, Celia Corthell Parlasca and Ross Corthell and their mother Sylvia Kurzrock. She was preceded in death by her father, mother, stepmother Elizabeth Corthell, husband, brother Nellis Eugene Corthell and many close friends. She was the last surviving of 21 first cousins, descended from grandparents Nellis Eugene and Eleanor Quackenbush Corthell of Laramie, Wyoming.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a donation to the California Native Plant Society, Monterey Bay Chapter (https://chapters.cnps.org/montereybay/) or the Sierra Club, Ventana Chapter (http://www.ventanasierraclub.org/).

A Celebration of Life service will be held on February 8, 2024 at Hidden Valley Music Seminars in Carmel Valley. RSVP to Kim Matthews (email ki.matthews@verizon.net) for details and so that we may plan refreshments.

In mid-July 2024, interment will be held at the Corthell Family plot in Greenhill Cemetery in Laramie. For details, email Kim Matthews.