As March draws to a close, taking with it National Women’s History Month, I am impressed with how many stories of strong, brilliant, achieving, and up-and-coming women I have read about who are making waves in politics, the arts, sports, academe—everywhere.
But it also puts me in mind of the past, and my singular good fortune to have known, and long been a part of, The Society of Woman Geographers (SWG), a group of women explorers and leaders in their fields who banded together in 1925 because men wouldn’t let them through the door.
For me, the association began in the early ‘80s, when recently returned from several years living in West Africa, I decided I wanted to make a career switch from academia, my intended destination, to writing. Having become fascinated with a myriad of generally unknown women explorers in Africa, and having done considerable research on them, I decided to start there. I got a research desk in the Library of Congress and burrowed in. But quickly I found myself in company. At the time, the acclaimed poet, Maxine Kumin,
was the Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress (a precursor to the Poet Laureate) and I was invited to brown bag lunch sessions with her and other women scholars.
Before long I met and was befriended by Luree Miller, inveterate traveler, adventurer and author of several books. She was doing research for On Top of the World, her marvelous book about five women explorers in Tibet.
She was also an enthusiastic member of SWG, which she soon nominated me to join. Not only did she become a mentor and invaluable friend, but she shared so much—books, research, contacts, friends, and most importantly, what it means for women to help each other—that my life was altered permanently.
Among women of her generation whom I came to cherish was the artist and writer Ben Booz who traveled the world with Luree as they produced travel stories together using Ben’s drawings instead of photos.
Then there was Jane Coon, who had been close to Luree during their days together in India, and who would become US Ambassador to Bangladesh while her husband, Carleton, was Ambassador to Nepal. 
Closer to my age was Ann Parks Hawthorne, photographer extraordinaire and specialist in Antarctica. Pictured here with her hero, Jackie Ronne, 
who was the first woman to winter over in Anarctica, she would become my life-long friend and companion as we traveled the country as a kind of “Thelma and Louise” of journalism, on assignment for a Washington news service.
We would all come together in a special way in 1995-96, when Luree succumbed to the cancer she fought so valiantly. On the days when she had chemotherapy, Jane would drive her, then return with her to her Capitol Hill townhouse where Ann and I would join Ben in cooking her dinner, which she would enjoy in company before the nausea set in. As her support group, we called ourselves the Gang of Four, and during that year Luree taught me as much about how to die well as she had taught me about living.
I am including a link to an article I wrote for the Washington Post Magazine in 1985 about SWG. Some of Luree’s shared research informed this piece.
To learn more about the Society as it is today, (now happily housed on Capitol Hill due to Luree Miller’s efforts), here is a link to its website.
Joanna Biggar's Blog 
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