Our Stories

An Act of Will

In Brief: You often hear it said that the public, by a massive majority, supports environmental protection -- until it comes to money. If saving a creature, for example, is going to cost a lot of money, conventional wisdom says to forget it. What you don’t often hear about is people who are avid and generous environmental supporters and keep quiet about it. Such a man was Milton Field. A few years ago, while she still worked for Earthjustice, Alison Levine wrote his story.

Milton Field -- grandfather, musician, conservationist

I never knew Milton Field, even though he was an Earthjustice donor and I worked in the development office. Milton gave small gifts to Earthjustice in the late 1980s and early 90s, before I came to work here. Although he never told us, it turns out that Milton had included Earthjustice in his will.

When Milton passed away, his grandson Erik acted as the executor of his will. Erik was pleased, yet surprised, to find that his grandfather had left a number of charitable gifts, one of which was a bequest to Earthjustice. Erik had never known that his grandfather had charitable interests and used this opportunity to get to know his grandfather in a new way.

Erik called me to talk about Milton and to see how his grandfather’s gift could be put to use in a way that reflected his interests and was also of the greatest benefit to Earthjustice.

Milton Field was certainly an interesting man. He spent a good portion of his youth traveling the country, playing saxophone with the likes of Sammy Davis, Jr. and Nat King Cole. When he finally settled in Miami Beach, Florida, he even created his very own band -- The Milton Field Orchestra -- playing in supper clubs for years, even into his retirement.

He was also an animal lover and a wildlife enthusiast. Upon learning of Milton’s love of animals, I suggested to Erik that we put his money to work protecting the Endangered Species Act, which was facing threats from Congress, from the White House, and from pro-development interests across the country. Erik thought that protecting the law that protects wildlife would be a fitting tribute to his grandfather.

While talking with Erik about his grandfather I learned that Erik had never actually seen his grandfather give his time or money to charity. It was only in his passing that Erik learned of his grandfather’s dedication to the causes he so deeply believed in. His grandfather’s death had taught him lessons he never expected to learn.

Inspired by Milton, Erik was beginning to reconnect with his own environmental interests that had been largely dormant for many years. He was talking to his parents about supporting environmental causes and was planning to do so himself. But the first thing he wanted to do was hand deliver the check from his grandfather’s estate.

I was very glad to have the chance to meet Erik when he came to our headquarters office to deliver the check. Erik even wrote a nice profile of his grandfather to help us encourage others to support Earthjustice through their estate plans, as Milton had. When writing that profile, Erik sent me a photo of Milton as a young man out enjoying the wilderness.

To me that photo and Erik’s story of reconnecting to his environmental interests represent one of the best aspects of Earthjustice’s work. Because we work through the courts, we are able to preserve the wild places and wildlife in our country in a lasting way -- a way that is
durable enough to be handed down through generations.