In the leading up to the history portion of our Spring Speakers Series on Wednesday, May 8, we will be highlighting a few historical staff biographies.
Carmen Wise was born in Licking County in 1904 and was the son of Joseph Wise, a farmer who lived north of The Dawes Arboretum’s property on State Route 13. Carmen attended the Brumbach school house as a child. He was enrolled here until the 8th grade and never furthered his education beyond that. The Brumbach school house is still located on our grounds today.
In his younger years, he worked for local farmers as a farm laborer and operator. During this time, he was taught the skills to manage farm and dairy operations. By the late 1920’s, Carmen was in charge of overseeing large herds and also managing the staff that oversaw them. With this experience, he was employed to oversee Beman Dawes’ herd on White Chapel Drive, which was labeled as the “milking operation” until it closed in 1933.
Upon the closure, Carmen transitioned to The Arboretum to focus more on grounds tasks while still supervising some livestock. He was given the task to plant trees around The Arboretum with little help due to financial restrictions of the time. Despite the economic struggles, the collection of specimens was a conservation project that Beman and his wife, Bertie, wanted to make sure continued.
By World War II, the government had changed the requirements of service for those individuals that were to be drafted. Carmen was then forced to leave The Arboretum after receiving his notice to join the ranks and serve. He resigned from his role and wrote a letter to Beman stating that the government did not view operation of an arboretum to be agricultural work and exempt from serving.
Carmen left soon after to serve his country domestically. His loss was strongly felt on our grounds as well from other staff and our founders. He later passed away in 1985 and unfortunately never made a return to The Arboretum.