Emma Azelborn

The ancient trees were falling, the sawmills ever grinding

Cathedral treetops burning by piles of ties and siding

When women called for action as the century began

Many hands and many voices defending redwood land

chorus:

And her voice still echoes through the valley

And her voice still echoes through the valley

It weaves through the leaves of the redwood trees

Her voice still echoes through the valley

Carrie Stevens Walter and Josephine McCrackin

They saw untold destruction and wrote of what could happen

They called out “save the redwoods!” and spread it far and wide

And the women in their gardens took up the battle cry

Hundreds of club women joined Laura White in protest

For congress said they’d buy a grove but Joe refused to fund it

The women kept on pressing 'til he shouted “go to hell!”

Laura died never knowing if her giant sequoias fell

O’er thirty years these women followed Laura P Mahan

When loggers cut protected trees she sounded the alarm

She caught them in the act and threw her body in the way

So their axes never landed; those trees all stand today

Elizabeth Martin, Kate Harpst and Ella Georgeson

Elizabeth Kent, Ethyl Lansdale, Mary Loveland

Minnie Ryan, Annie Murray, and Ernestine Goodman

Helen Thorne, Minnie Fitzgerald, Edith Woodridge, Anna Royles

Clara Burdette, Aurelia Reinhardt

Helen Knight, Augusta Urquhart

O’er a thousand hands and voices believed in redwood parks