Date: 3/15/26 9:57 am From: Thomas Foti <tfoti62...> Subject: Re: Crip's relative is back (Fayetteville)
I have a copy currently in my stack to donate to CALS. You may be able to find it in their next used book sale. My mentor, Jane E. Stern, introduced me to Ruth Thomas, whom I had been reading for years, at my first AAS meeting in the mid-60s. I later visited her home and may have met Crip...memory fades. But I searched the Ark. Gazette archives and read all her columns there. She was a major influence in my life and career. Tom
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From: The Birds of Arkansas Discussion List <ARBIRD-L...> on behalf of Ragupathy Kannan <0000013b0ad14faf-dmarc-request...>
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2026 11:43 AM
To: <ARBIRD-L...> <ARBIRD-L...>
Subject: Re: Crip's relative is back (Fayetteville)
Ruth Harris Thomas was a highly regarded amateur ornithologist whose column on birding in Arkansas was published by the Arkansas Gazette for about forty ...
On Sunday, March 15, 2026, 11:39 AM, Ragupathy Kannan <greathornbill...> wrote:
I was curious about the author and searched our group email. Found this.
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When I was much YOUNGER in the sixties I wrote Ruth Thomas about birding. I had three or four letters she wrote back to me and she encouraged me to join Arkansas Audubon Society. I'm very glad I did. I'm not able to go now for health reasons but I still have memories of AAS and members in my heart. I gave these letters to Helen Parker to give to someone at U of A to put in the AAS archives. I hope she was abe to get the letters there.
Terry Butler
Sent from my Galaxy Tab® S2
-------- Original message --------
From: Carol Joan Patterson <0000003a0ccbe138-dmarc-request...>
Date: 12/12/24 3:40 PM (GMT-06:00)
To: <ARBIRD-L...>
Subject: Re: Ruth Thomas “Crip, Come Home”
What a great find! Thanks to all who shared material about this fine person.
On Thursday, December 12, 2024 at 09:56:39 AM CST, Sandy Berger <sndbrgr...> wrote:
Found this gem in a pile of discarded library books. You can read about Ruth on encyclopediaofarkansas.net<http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/> She was very influential in the Arkansas’ birding world in the 50’s and 60’s and I believe was one of the founders of the Arkansas Audubon Society. Joe Neal and Doug James are quoted in the article.
Sandy Berger
Fort Smith
On Saturday, March 14, 2026, 11:08 AM, Lynn Risser <lynnkrisser...><mailto:<lynnkrisser...>> wrote:
You can easily get Crip, Come Home with Abe's Books or Thriftbooks. As one commentor said, it is an "endearing " read. It is not sentimental, but it is, I agree, lovely. It should be reprinted.
On Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 10:52 AM Joseph Neal <0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...><mailto:<0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...>> wrote:
A Brown Thrasher is singing out in my yard this morning in Fayetteville. And right on time. They nest in my yard and often show up in second week of March.
This annual event reminds me very much of Arkansas’s most famous Brown Thrasher – Crip, the thrasher that nested for many years at Morrilton in Ruth Thomas’s yard. She wrote a lovely book about Crip and the ecology of what she named Crip’s Hill.
“Crip, Come Home” was published in 1950. Sections of this book first appeared in her columns in the old Arkansas Gazette. Her writings played an important role in founding of Arkansas Audubon Society.
The book is out of print. But thrashers still return to our yards, as did Crip. The book is still a great read.
