Author: Lillian Crook
A retired librarian, Lillian Crook was an Army child but completed her junior high and high school education while living in North Dakota’s Slope County, where her parents retired to her mother's family farm and ranch. She completed a bachelor's degree in English from Dickinson (N.D.) State University and a master’s of library science from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and was an academic librarian at Vanderbilt and DSU for 26 years. As a high school student, she worked on the school paper, played piano and sang in the choir. As a student at Dickinson State, she worked on the college newspaper staff as a copy editor. After retiring from library work, she fulfilled a lifetime dream and worked for Theodore Roosevelt National Park as a museum technician while also volunteering for TRNP in many capacities. She is married to Jim Fuglie, is an avid reader, gardener and birder, enjoys hiking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, photography, and writing, is the mother of twin daughters and practices yoga. She and Jim run Red Oak House (she is the household geek and website person) from their home and are the authors of the forthcoming biography of Paul Southworth Bliss. Lillian is the founder of Badlands Conservation Alliance, a grass-roots voice for wild places in western North Dakota. Bullion Butte is the center of her universe, and she is happiest when floating the Little Missouri River. Her writings and photos are on Substack and unheralded.fish and consist of random thoughts on wild places, travel, biography, history and musings on life in Red Oak House of Bismarck. She volunteers at the North Dakota Heritage Center, enjoys cooking, family gatherings, pinochle and occasionally cares for her great-niece, baby Lily. Oddly enough, she even has a YouTube channel. Her sisters and brother also live in North Dakota, and she cherishes time spent with them. She takes heart from one of her favorite writers, Terry Tempest Williams, who wrote, "If you know wilderness like you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go. We are talking about the body of the beloved, not real estate."