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- Mary Beth Volmer: Mm...
It's a big dream.
I'm glad I didn't fall.
[laughter]
- Narrator: Mary Beth Volmer is on a mission.
- Mary Beth Volmer: Yes, yes, yes!
On this day she arrives on the northern tip of Door County
with other volunteers
ready to preserve Plum Island's maritime traditions.
- Mary Beth Volmer: Okay, welcome, everyone, to Plum Island.
Yay.
- Group: Yay!
- Mary Beth is not only a volunteer.
She is on the board for the Friends of Plum and Pilot Island
and the founder of Women in Preservation.
- The Women in Preservation had gotten started
by my introduction to some wonderful, wonderful women
that just wanted to come and learn things
and be part of this preservation work.
- The idea came to her a few years back
while working in the ruins
of the old Plum Island Lighthouse.
- Mary Beth Volmer: And we were all sitting around
and we were pulling out all the weeds,
and we started talking about
how some of us were retired, some of us were married,
grandparents, just starting a family,
and thought,
how great that this is for us to be working together.
- Right then and there, Women in Preservation was born.
- Mary Beth Volmer: Hi. - Hi!
- I'm Mary Beth.
You going to help us out? - Women: I am, wherever you put me.
- Mary Beth Volmer: These are people who come from all over the place,
from Chicago, from Milwaukee.
And they give up their time to this restoration work.
These instructions are awesome.
Even I can follow them.
- On this trip, volunteers will assemble Aldo Leopold benches
to set out along the trails.
- Let's get rocking, guys.
- Group: All right, yay!
- We have men that mentor us
on how to use hand tools and saws,
and building materials,
and allow us to be part of this project.
- Man: So, you want this hole to be bigger
and this hole to be smaller.
- Mary Beth Volmer: Okay, all right.
Bigger, smaller bite. Got it.
[drilling]
Is it a women's movement?
I think a little bit of it, yes, it's equality,
it's seeing that women can be doing things
that have been in the past, relegated to men.
They didn't treat me as a woman --
No, I'm sorry.
They did, but they didn't like say,
"No, you can't do that because you are a woman."
That's fine.
I think if we make a couple of --
We arrange them in a couple of stations,
then they can just come drill, drill, drill, drill.
- Right.
- And without Mary Beth,
other women wouldn't have made this same discovery.
- Mary Beth Volmer: I've learned about the strength that women have inside.
Just because something looks so daunting,
building a kiosk
when this takes six people to lift it.
I never thought I would be able to do that.
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- For more than 150 years,
these buildings were critical to navigation.
Today they are listed on the National Historic Register.
- Which means that any type of preservation work that we do,
we need to work with the state to assure that we are keeping it
true to its vintage.
You look like you're almost enjoying yourself, Kristin.
- Man: She's gettin' to play with power tools.
- Okay, right here?
- Yup. - Okay.
[drilling] - Man: All right!
- Oh, my beautiful workshop.
The sun beating down on us,
[water brushing shore] the lapping of the water.
We don't need to have any kind of background music;
we have it all.
- Preserving the past
on a remote island
in the middle of the Green Bay National Wildlife Refuge
can have its drawbacks.
- There is no electricity.
Cellular is not all that great either.
- But that can really draw you in.
- We're not checking our Facebook and our emails.
We're just being with one another.
Look at that, guys.
It's perfectly plum.
- The volunteers feed off
of the natural energy in this island oasis.
- It's a sanctuary, it's a refuge.
It's a place to come to be recharged.
The island was abandoned in 1990 from the Coast Guard,
and every time that I come out here,
I can see where Mother Nature is continually trying to come back.
There's new wildflowers.
There's new birds.
There's so many monarch butterflies.
We see how Mother Nature has just been so resilient
and has rebuilt every time that she's been torn down.
We can do that, too.
[drilling]
- Whoa!
Yay, perfect.
- Man: Works a little better that way, doesn't it? [laughter]
- The Friends of Plum and Pilot Island
have grand plans
for this 325-acre stepping stone to the past.
- Our plans are to be able to open the island
from Memorial Day until Labor Day.
[screw jumping]
Yahoo, our first one.
This bench was built by the Women in Preservation
and placed in honor of William J. Thomas.
William J. Thomas served on this island many years ago.
So, we're going to place him
right over by the Lifesaving Station.
In the past, women came out here and we did weeding,
and we did women kind of things.
[drilling]
Now, we're building, and we're restoring,
and we're learning these new skills.
It's been a confidence builder for myself and the other women.
When they come by on the ferry they can say, I was there.
I did that!
The motto of the Women in Preservation
is that "No woman is to leave Plum Island
"without dirt underneath her fingernails
and a learning experience within her soul."
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