Smith: Trione saw his legacy in Annadel’s creation

Bill Krumbein worked nearly his entire career as a ranger at Annadel State Park and he chronicled its first 20 years in a book. He feels strongly that to rename Annadel for the late Henry Trione is not the way to go.

Though the creation of Annadel wouldn’t have happened without Trione, Krumbein said he favors keeping the current name and instead redubbing the park’s 1,909-foot Bennett Mountain as Trione Mountain.

“It would be like a proud grandfather looking out over his family of accomplishments in every direction,” the retired ranger said.

Others who’ve spoken up about Sunday’s column endorsing the proposal to rededicate the park in Trione’s name enthusiastically support the idea.

“I cannot think of anything that would be a better tribute to such a wonderful and generous man,” said Frances Waska of Oakmont.

Forty-five years ago, Alan Milner worked with Trione as chairman of the committee that helped to raise money for the envisioned park. He suggests perhaps “setting aside a day each year called Henry’s Day. One hundred years from now, people would still be telling - and re-telling - Henry stories.”

A number of others suggest a blended new name for the park.

Posed Andrew Smith, “How about Henry Trione Annadel State Park?” Go with that, he reasoned, and there will be no confusion about what happened to Annadel.

Many people are asking, what would Trione have wanted? It’s no secret he was not fond of being feted or fussed over.

I spoke with Eileen Trione on Monday and this is what she said.

Perhaps two weeks before her husband died Feb. 12, they talked about an initiative they were aware of to dedicate a building in his honor. Eileen said Henry told her, “You know what, my greatest wish would be to have Annadel named after me.”

A short time later, Eileen said, she phoned Georgia Smith at the California State Parks Foundation, which Henry served as it first chairman, and shared his wish. She said Smith, executive assistant to the charitable foundation’s president, told her the renaming of a state park had never been done before, but that she would raise the question of a new name for Annadel.

Eileen agrees with those who would like not to see “Annadel” go away. She, too, likes the sound of “Henry Trione Annadel State Park.”

She said she told Henry about her call to the park foundation and he was pleased.

“It really was his wish,” she said.

LAST OF THE 10: Reading again the profile of Trione in the PD’s 1999 magazine that starred the 50 people judged to have done the most to shape Sonoma County in the 20th Century, I was smacked by this bittersweet fact:

Trione was the last living member of the Top 10, those regarded as the cream of the “50 Who Shaped Our County.”

Passing before him were former SRJC President Floyd Bailey, horticulturist Luther Burbank, builder Hugh Codding, banker and Golden Gate Bridge advocate Frank Doyle, PD publisher Ernest Finley, writer Jack London, County Supervisor Helen Putnam, judge and state senator Joe Rattigan and “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles Schulz.

Pretty good company.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD