Title: Ijams book captures family, center history Author: Amy McRary Publisher: Knox News Date: 5/16/10 Ijams Nature Center celebrates its beginnings, its growth and the family who gave the nonprofit its name and its start in a new book. Center Executive Director Paul James has researched and written the book entitled simply "Ijams Nature Center." The 127-page volume is filled with photographs from the Ijams family as well as from the center's past and present. It's also filled with readable details and historical tidbits that point to a devoted love for research by James. H.P. and Alice Ijams bought 20 acres of South Knoxville land in 1910 and turned it into a garden showplace and bird sanctuary. After their deaths, Ijams became a public park.

This fall, the center will grow to 275 acres. Visitors who enjoy the center's walks, educational programs and green space will learn a lot they probably haven't known about its history. Among the book's details is that H.P. and Alice Ijams weren't only dedicated conservationists. But they and their family were also involved in area Girl Scouting and in the early days of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There's one chapter devoted to the family Christmas cards that H.P.

Ijams, an artist and illustrator by profession, created for years. The chapters on the family offer a view of a family that loved each other and loved the outdoors. Taken as a whole, "Ijams Nature Center" gives its readers an often fascinating look into the story behind the wildlife sanctuary and environmental education center that attracts 150,000 to 2000,000 people a year. The book, published by Arcadia Publishing in its Images of America series, is available at the center's museum store or at www.ijams.org. The center is also selling a 16-set reproduction of some of H.P.

Ijams' hand-drawn Christmas postcards.