When I was first introduced to Stephen Mather in a documentary film, I remarked to my wife that the man was "perfect." Tall, handsome, soaring intelligent, educated, wealthy, and most significantly, a champion for the preservation of our natural areas. Mather created and then served as the first director of the Department of the Interior charged with creating and protecting our national parks and national monuments. Periodically he would incur horrific bouts of depression that would land him in mental hospitals, then called sanitariums. He has been posthumously diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
