Alice Eastwood was born in Toronto, Canada, on January 19, 1859. Her childhood was not an easy one. Eastwood's mother died when she was only six years old. Eastwood's father had a hard time keeping a job. Young Alice spent most of her childhood apart from her family, sometimes living with relatives. One relative, an uncle, shared his love for plants with young Alice. He taught her the scientific names of the plants in his garden. Seeing her interest, the uncle bought Eastwood her first books on botany (BAH•tuhn•ee), the study of plants. She began to spend her free time reading about plants and exploring nearby areas to see what grew there.



























































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Earthquake
     When Alice Eastwood was 14 years old, her father moved the family to Denver, Colorado. The plants and flowers around Denver were very different from those that Eastwood had known in Canada. A teacher who learned of Eastwood's interest in botany gave her two books on Colorado plants and flowers. Eastwood was excited to learn about the area's plants and began searching for them. She collected samples of the plants she found, carefully flattening and drying them. She took notes on where they grew and how to identify them. At about this time, Eastwood began to share her love of plants with anyone who would listen.
     In 1879 Alice Eastwood graduated from high school. She took a job as a teacher at the same Denver school where she had just been a student. During her summer vacations, she hiked through Colorado's Rocky Mountains to search for new plant samples. Miners and hikers invited Eastwood to travel with them. Famous botanists often came to see her when they visited Colorado.
     Alice Eastwood never made much money, but she was very careful with what she had. By the time she was 31 years old, she had saved enough to retire from teaching. This allowed her to travel the western United States and to study plants full-time. During one trip, Eastwood met a woman named Katherine Brandegee. Brandegee was a famous naturalist, or person who studies the environment, and one of Eastwood's heroes. Brandegee was in charge of the plant collection at the California Academy of Sciences. When she saw Eastwood's work, Brandegee offered her a job at the academy. In 1892 Eastwood moved to San Francisco, California, to start work there. Her job was to keep doing what she loved, traveling to find new plants for the academy's collection.
     Eastwood worked for the California Academy of Sciences for 57 years. During that time she became very well known for her work as a botanist. She wrote books and articles about the plants she found. She even risked her life to save a collection of rare plants when an earthquake destroyed the academy building! When she was 90 years old, Alice Eastwood retired from her job at the California Academy of Sciences. After her retirement she continued working to get protection for endangered plants and to get land set aside for parks and other natural areas. Alice Eastwood died on October 30, 1953, at the age of 94.