There is an old Native American tradition of naming a child for the first thing of note seen after that new life is welcomed into the world. Just as some believe the position of stars and planets influence our personalities, this method of naming suggest a belief that certain attributes are predestined, and that nature shows us what those will be.

   On July 31, 1905, Jessie Grunigen gave birth to a baby boy. She probably never thought, growing up in New Jersey, that she would deliver her first born in a canvas tent deep in the mountains of California. How could she have ever imagined that her son would be born, quite literally, in the shadow of the world's largest trees, in the heart of a spectacular forest of giants? The boy was the first white child born in Sequoia National Park.

   Following the old Indian tradition, John Grunigen had only to step out of the tent where his wife and newborn son lay to see all around him nature's proclamation of this child's destiny. Nowhere had he ever seen such examples of natural beauty, strength, and dignity. John named his son "Forest." Whether this was a conscious act to endow great aspirations or not is difficult to say, but the boy would have a lot to live up to in any case.

DR. FOREST GRUNIGEN'S remarkable life spanned nearly the entire twentieth century. The first white child born in Sequoia National Park, he moved to Los Angeles in the roaring '20s, becoming a doctor of osteopathy. He was a physician to the MGM stars of Hollywood's golden era in the '30s and received urology training in Nazi-occupied Austria as World War II approached. He led a decades-long battle to merge osteopathic and conventional medicine in California through the '40s and '50s. He was instrumental in bringing the medical school to UC Irvine in the '60s. He held a variety of state positions, including a term as president of the Board of Medical Examiners, through the '70s and '80s. He was a driving force in developing a museum and highway rest stop in his hometown in the '90s. Dr. Forest Grunigen died in 1999.