Susan Cox (right) with friends Phyllis and Helen at Trilliom Lake in 1998.

Dr. Susan Cox and Helen Johnson both passed away this year and each chose the NFC as the recipient of a lifetime bequest. Nature lover, conservation advocate, hiker and backpacker, Dr. Susan Cox died of cancer on May 22, 2000. Born in Bristol, England in 1942, Susan received a medical degree from Victoria University of Manchester, England in 1965. After fellowships in London and Pennsylvania, she was an assistant Professor at the Medical College of Pennsylvania for four years.

She joined Kaiser Northwest Permanente as an obstetrician-gynecologist in 1977, where she worked until her retirement in 1996. She was a member of the American College of Obstetricians and the Oregon Obstetrician-Gynecological Society. According to Susan, however, her medical work was secondary to her environmental efforts. An avid outdoorswoman, she kayaked the Yukon River of Alaska and New Territories of Canada and hiked in Mexico, Chile, Nepal, Scotland and England.

Susan's friends and relatives will always remember her for her kindness, her caring, her generosity and her loving protection of the environment. Helen Johnson

Helen Johnson was born in Calgary, Ontario, in 1920. She met her husband Harold "Happy" Johnson while working at a resort in Lake Louise. They moved to Seattle in 1946 and later opened the Homestead Nursery in Redmond, Washington.

Harold died in 1973, and Helen reluctantly sold the nursery five years later. In 1976, she worked to establish Redmond as a "Green Survival" city, a program to bring plants to public places throughout the community. She was a quiet and persistent activist who planted and nurtured the seed of several important community projects that continue today. In 1979, Helen opened the doors of the Green Cycle Recycling Center, a service that collected and sold recycled glass, newspapers and cans, then used the money to buy trees for the community. The center continues working to encourage recycling and plant more trees in the community that Helen loved so dearly.

Helen later became interested in auras and alternative healing, working as a national coordinator for the Inner Peace Movement. She remained active until the last days of her life, writing letters and volunteering at the Puget Sound co-op. During her last years, Helen relinquished most of her material possessions, once telling a friend that "too many things hold you down and make you so stuck you cannot move." She fought in her quiet and willful way to live and die by herself, in her apartment, the master of her own home. It is a fight she ultimately won, when she passed away October 31, 2000 at the age of eighty.

The memories of Helen Johnson and Dr. Susan Cox will live on in the lives they touched and the gifts they left behind, reminding us to be good to the earth, because it is good to us. And we can't live without it.

2001 in Review

A review of the litigation, legislation and educational tools used by the NFC in 2001.

2001 Highlights

A review of the major campaigns and actions of the NFC in 2001.

In Memory

Highlights the lives of council members Dr. Susan Cox and Helen Johnson and their generous gifts to the NFC.

In Focus: Moisha Blechman

Council member Moisha Blechman staunchly fights for saving what's left of our natural resources.

2001 Financial Report

An overview of how we put our resources to work and who provides them.