Early Career

Paul M. Dunn: enrolled in forestry and graduated in 1923. I was given a scholarship for graduate work, and carried on the forestry program for a year and a half.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: Where were you given a scholarship to?

Paul M. Dunn: Iowa State College, in the forestry department.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: At that point in your education did you have any area of specialization, or was it just general?

Paul M. Dunn: At that period there were not many areas of specialization in the departments and schools of forestry. However, my major was forest management, with an emphasis on industrial forestry. But, in mid-1925, I ran out of money, so I had to stop my studies. I was hired by a publication firm for a period. In January, 1926 I was offered a position with the Missouri Forestry Department, and I accepted it. Mrs. Dunn and I were married January 21, 1926, and we started my career in forestry in February of 1926.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: What was your wife's name before she was married?

Paul M. Dunn: Neva Kissinger. She was from Le Mars, Iowa, also. We embarked on my career in forestry together. The State Forester of Missouri, Mr. Frederick Dunlap, and I were the only two members of the organization and I was stationed in Ellington, Missouri in the Ozarks on a program of fire prevention education. We lived there for five and a half years, and our two sons were born in Ellington.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: What were their names?

Paul M. Dunn: Robert Paul and James Wesley. James is here at Oregon State University.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: Can you tell us something about what you did in those five years?

Paul M. Dunn: I covered a good share of the Ozark region which is in central southern Missouri, contacting landowners, school people, and private individuals, telling the story of the advantages of preventing fires. For years, and I am told the practice still continues on a moderate scale, and once or twice a year the local people burn the woods. They set fire to burn the brush and other debris, basically to permit better grazing for livestock, and also to forestall the risk of somebody else starting a fire and having it spread to the property of other people. That had been the practice for years and years -- "woodsburning," they called it. My major instrument in the program was motion