Toolin’ Around Town: From emergency rooms to hiking trails

The tranquility of open space brings comfort to Earl Herr.

His favorite pastime is spending mornings mowing grass, trimming vegetation and pulling weeds at Alman Marsh, or tending to nature at Bouverie Preserve in Sonoma’s Valley of the Moon. Helping preserve the habitat for endangered or threatened wildlife by removing invasive plant life is his reward.

“I very enjoyably spend my time at Alman Marsh,” said Herr, 84, of his association with Petaluma Wetlands Alliance, dedicated to preserving the habitat of public wetlands at Shollenberger Park, Alman March and Ellis Creek. “I highly recommend it.”

The serenity of the outdoors is a walk in the park compared with the high-stakes environment Herr encountered as an emergency room physician and as a peace activist and human rights advocate, who voluntarily provided medical aid to Central American countries during political unrest and natural disasters.

A Sonoma County resident for 49 years, Herr, the youngest of 10 children, was raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in a log cabin that lacked running water.

“We were Mennonites. We came from a background of work,” said Herr, who traces his genealogy back 11 generations to 1709, when his German ancestors settled in Lancaster County. The Herr House, now a museum, built in 1719 by Christian and Anna Herr, is the oldest dwelling in the county and the oldest original Mennonite meeting house in the western hemisphere.

Herr was 18 when he moved to New York and began work as an orderly and receptionist in the radiotherapy department of a cancer hospital, which broadened his world. After marrying at 20, he enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C., graduating with top honors and a degree in chemistry.

“I had considered medical school but was leaning toward graduate work in chemistry,” said Herr. “In 1961, I was accepted at Cal Berkeley and together with my wife and two kids drove to California. We enjoyed California, but I left school to work as an engineer for Radio Corporation of America in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”

Two years later he changed his mind and enrolled at Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. After graduating, he interned at San Francisco General Hospital and bought a house in Marin County shortly before he and his wife divorced. He’d gained some emergency room experience and helped open clinics in New York and Washington D.C. before accepting a job at Petaluma’s Hillcrest Hospital emergency room in August 1972.

“I was the first physician to work at Hillcrest that wasn’t already a local clinician,” said Herr. “I then encountered a setback and had to be hospitalized for depression. With treatment and medication I recovered. Since then, I’ve discovered how wonderful life is. I resumed working in January 1973, taking over as emergency room director.”

Living in Austin Creek with Betty, his former companion of 32 years, he enjoyed the scenic commute to work, especially during the construction and removal of Christo’s Running Fence along the undulating golden hills and valleys of Sonoma County. In 1980, he began working in the ER of the then-new Petaluma Valley Hospital, where he remained until retiring in 2008.

“Before emergency medicine became a specialty, I considered going into private practice, but Hillcrest was very inviting, so I just continued it,” said Herr. “I became heavily involved with Sonoma County’s Hispanic community...For years, I participated in Cinco de Mayo celebrations in Windsor and Healdsburg and worked in free clinics in Petaluma, Rohnert Park and Petaluma.”

Throughout his career, Herr became involved in humanitarian causes. A registered conscientious objector, he was arrested twice for demonstrating against the Vietnam War.

“In the early 1980s, during the Reagan administration, I had difficulty tolerating how this country was behaving. It didn’t fit my way of thinking so I started getting involved. In 1983, I went down to Nicaragua when the Contras from Honduras were there. I started learning Spanish, which helped with my background in emergency room work.”

In 1984, Herr was in El Salvador for the elections, and in 1986 he went to San Salvador following the devastating earthquake.

“I collected medical supplies which were sent to Nicaragua,” he said. “In 1988, Betty and I drove to Jinotepe, Nicaragua, where I worked in a hospital and she worked at a health clinic.”

In 2004, Herr returned to Guatemala for the elections, where he continued his understanding of what was happening in Latin America. He and Betty broke up in 2006.

“My kids are childless, but I have numerous inherited grandchildren,” said Herr of his extended family.

In 1984, Herr helped establish the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County, whose mission is to inform, support and energize the Sonoma County community to create peace and social justice through nonviolence. For his commitment to peace and nonviolence, Herr was honored by having his name included on Sebastopol’s Living Peace Wall, joining former Petaluma city councilwoman, U.S. Congresswoman and lifelong peace activist Lynn Woolsey, and previous inductees Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter and Daniel Ellsberg, among others.

He and Noellene Sommer have been together for 14 years and reside in Petaluma. A doctor of psychology, she’s retired from the Santa Clara County judicial system.

“We got involved with Petaluma Wetlands Alliance, which has become a regular habit of mine, three days a week for three hours at a time,” he said. “And I’ve spent a decade volunteering at Bouverie Preserve. It’s a pleasure to work over there and to see what we’re doing with the preserve. Sonoma County is such a beautiful place to live. It’s been a marvelous experience.”

Harlan Osborne’s “Toolin’ Around Town” runs every other week in the Argus-Courier. You can reach him at harlan@sonic.net.