Page:Michael Welsh - Dunes and Dreams, A History of White Sands National Monument (1995).pdf/85

 Chapter Three recreational aspects of the gypsum field, and creation for families of a place to play like nowhere else in the park service.

Upon his retirement in September 1939, Tom Charles received plaudits from local admirers and NPS officials alike. Arno Cammerer, now director of the park service, called Charles "the guiding hand in setting aside, building up, and preserving the White Sands." In a statement that ignored the arguments between Charles and his superiors about monument usage, Cammerer declared: "I do want you to know that the National Park Service highly values and appreciates the pioneering work you have done." Johnwill Faris echoed these sentiments twenty-five years later, as he neared his own retirement, saying: "Tom Charles was to the White Sands what Stephen Mather is to the National Park Service." For Charles himself, the release of control over the dunes prompted nostalgic memories shared in the for September. He had come from the plains of Kansas, where his father had been an "Indian fighter," and his mother "the only doctor within a radius of 100 miles." Yet he knew that times had changed, requiring skills of organization and awareness of the complexities of science and technology that he did not possess. "It was mine to do the pioneering," he told his colleagues in the park service, but at the close of his career he felt: "I was born 40 years too soon."