Carl, age 75 1/2 died at home in Inwood valley leaving his wife, Marti, two brothers, two sisters, several nieces and nephews, and two Aunts, and many friends. Carl was born the first living of 7 children who lived to adulthood. He arrived at the Presidio Army Hospital of San Francisco. Great grandson of a bridge-building engineer from Germany, grandson of railroad engineer on the Illinois Central Railroad, and son of local "Pops" Carl Weidert Jr. who installed communication equipment for the FAA, Carl was a contributor to family, community and Mother Earth. He didn't jump to conclusions. He was accepting of differences in people. He respected everything the Creator has given us: our families, the land, the forest, water, mountains. He believed all are related and we are a part of that relationship, and that even today, these things are important for our survival.
Carl expressed gratitude: 1. "I had a good Mother and Father." 2. "I had a fairly good childhood growing up." 3. "I got a good ‘education' helping my father and brother build by hand our parent's last home," (which was alongside Bear Creek, in the Inwood valley, near Black Butte Elementary School on the 100 Road on land inherited from his grandfather long ago. With two of his brothers and "Pops" Weidert, his father, they earmarked and cut good Douglas fir, milling it on site, gathering select lava rock, building the beautiful house, workshops, cabins and garden as a family). 4. "I'm grateful for a good education," (in biology from California State, Fullerton and doctoral work at U.C. Santa Barbara). For 40 years, since the 1970's Carl (along with his father, brother, and other volunteers) has gathered long term trend scientific data and records about water levels in wells in Shingletown as land developers developed. The property upon which his parent's house was built became the site of Carl & Stan Weidert's Biological, a joint venture he and his brother ran for 35 years until Stan died in 2008.
Carl was grateful "we were able to grow the business as much as we did." The pollen Carl and Stan collected together outdoors all over California, Nevada and Oregon for 35 years they brought home, processed and sold to pharmaceutical companies who made allergy shots for allergy sufferers. Clients included Allergon of Sweden, Greer of North Carolina, Hollister of Spokane, International Biologicals of Oklahoma, ALK Source Materials of Idaho, and Biopol, Ltd. As a direct result of the brothers' efforts, three of Carl's nephews bought his client list, tools of the business, and have further grown them into a lucrative income source. Carl and Stan led many a mushroom walk in Shingletown for appreciative mushroom aficionados. In his 40's and 50's, Carl led some backpacks to locales ranging from the Warner Mountains, to the Russian Wilderness, and the Trinity Alps Wilderness in between. Carl's knowledge of local Shingletown geology, water, weather, botany, ecology, paleontology and local Yana and Yahi tribes was considerable. He liked to share what he knew with those interested, so in that sense he was a teacher. Countless unnamed acts of kindness to other people marked this good man.
Carl was a prodigious reader, absorbing new information from a variety of sources daily. Carl met weekly with a men's group forming close bonds, sharing intimately about everything from politics to women to life. Carl used his brain to try to solve big problems. He left this world a better place. Carl co-founded the Bear Creek Watershed Group around 2001, after participating in the Inwood Task Force. Bear Creek is a protected salmon spawning creek. Working with State Fish and Wildlife, there were three phases of the plan to care for and improve the watershed. In Fall, 2013 the Group received a Conservation Award for "Outstanding Efforts conserving Shasta County's Natural Resources," working hard on measuring Shingletown well depths, monitoring stream flows continuing to be essential stewards of Shingletown's Bear Creek watershed. His comments to those in power helped save the wetlands now known as Ash Creek Wildlife Area near Bieber. He was thankful to have a part in community-based forestry (helping both the people and the forest) participating in the Sierra Club National Forest Committee, the President's Option 9 plan for managing ancient forests, California Soils Council, Shasta-Tehama Bioregional Council, and the 2014 Bay Delta water plan. Carl has proposed a workable clean energy solution to politicians including Congressman John Garamendi and State Assemblyman Brian Dahle. The workable idea is to cover California's vast network of water canals which would save evaporated water, and atop those covers add solar panels contributing abundant electric power to California's grid. Patient and kind even at life's finish, caregivers favored him. In the end, to visitors he did not complain as the kidneys failed their purpose.
"I hope I made a difference in getting us to ecosystem landscape management," Carl L. Weidert III (1943-2018)