Hello everyone! We have great news. We were finally able to secure a memorial bench for Meredith in Tilden Park. The location is at Inspiration Point. The bench has a great view and will have a memorial plaque placed on it sometime in the next several months. We would love for you to be part of it! It would be in Meredith's spirit to make this a community effort.

We are hoping to raise some additional funds to help pay for the memorial bench fee and are only asking you for a $25 donation to make this all happen. (And we'll let you know when the plaque is finally placed there!)

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Meredith McGovney Kaplan

January 9, 1938 – June 28, 2022

An avid hiker who loved the natural world, Meredith was for many years a superintendent with the National Park Service. There, she worked with dozens of community organizations, counties, municipalities, tribal entities, and state and federal agencies in planning the 1,200-mile Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, which traces the route Anza and his multiracial band of settlers took from Mexico to establish the first non-native settlement at San Francisco Bay. After congressional approval of the management plan, she became the historic trail’s first superintendent. Later, she planned the 175-mile Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail, a network of historic and cultural trails on the island of Hawaii, some of which had been in continuous use since the arrival of the first Polynesians to the Hawaiian Islands. Meredith was dedicated to civic engagement, serving on planning councils in Claremont and Rockridge, Oakland; as a Master Gardener for Alameda County; and as a longtime volunteer at her local food bank and food pantry.

The daughter of the late Esther Nichols McGovney and Richard McGovney, Meredith was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, with her two sisters, Anne and Susan, and her beloved horses, Pinto Pete and El Capitan. She earned her undergraduate degree at Stanford University and went on to pursue her master’s in English at Claremont Graduate School. She taught high school before starting a family in Claremont with her then husband, Hesh Kaplan. With four young children, they moved to a farm in Kings Valley, Oregon, where Meredith set up a ceramics studio; raised goats, sheep, and chickens; gardened; canned fruit and vegetables; baked the family bread each week; helped lead a 4-H Club; taught art at the local elementary school; volunteered for the feminist art magazine Calyx; and graciously hosted visitors.

In her 40s, Meredith went back to school for her Masters Degree in landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona, where she met her partner, Peg Henderson. She joined a San Francisco design firm, The Planning Collaborative, before arriving at the western regional office of the National Park Service, where she spent the remainder of her career. Peg and Meredith settled in Rockridge, Oakland, where they raised a child and built community, hosting book groups, brunches, “Edible Art” parties, and volunteering with the Rockridge News. People on her tree-lined block gathered at their home for “Sunday Soups” and called Meredith the heart of the neighborhood.

For two decades, Meredith was a joyous and steadfast member of the Weekly Wanderers, a women’s hiking group that explored the urban and wilderness trails of the Bay Area. With friends and family, she visited national parks throughout the West and ventured out on weeks-long hikes over historic trails around the world, such as Santiago de Compostela in Spain and France, the Cotswolds Way in England, and the John Muir Way in Scotland.

Meredith brought a fearlessness to her life, constantly reinventing herself, taking risks, and embarking on adventures. She was furiously industrious, always in the midst of tackling a project, from recaning chairs to regrouting bathtubs to tearing down a house for scrap lumber. She was expert at convening people, both personally and professionally, building consensus among diverse communities in order to plan historic trails, and welcoming and feeding not only her own friends, but the friends and loved ones of her partner and children. She had a wry sense of humor and loved a good single malt scotch, sticky toffee pudding, and especially a homemade tuna noodle casserole (with or without the tuna).

Meredith died on June 28, 2022 at her home, surrounded by family, following a difficult battle with multiple system atrophy, a degenerative illness.