Dear Reader, Welcome to my website! I invite you to explore it to acquaint yourself with me, the author, and with my Memoir: “I married a Park Ranger and became a Park Wife”.  My Memoir is a story full of adventure, isolation, and dedication that I experienced living in eight of our unique National Parks.

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Today, except for in a few remote areas, park communities no longer exist, and the feeling of a park family has grown more distant. I am grateful that I had the good luck to have married a ranger to become a Park Wife. We belonged to the three privileged generations that experienced this unique “folk culture,” which began in Yellowstone National Park when unmarried rangers “smuggled” wives into their remote backcountry cabins—a lifestyle that no longer exists.

“With vivid prose and a keen eye for detail, Phel Jacobsen is a natural storyteller: funny, compassionate, and endlessly entertaining. This book is an absolute delight. The breadth of locales is a love letter to America’s natural splendor, taking us to a desolate island on Lake Superior, the frigid peaks above Crater Lake, the volcanoes of Hawaii—and that only names just a few. But beautiful, majestic landscapes pale when put up against the love between Phel and Bob and their family and friends. This is a story unlike any that you’ve heard before—and it’s a book you’ll never forget.”

My First TV Interview

by Phel Jacobsen | Originally Posted Aug 9, 2018 | Phel’s Thoughts I was, naturally, nervous and wanting to give the best impression possible when WHSV-TV3 came to my home…

Hear me, hear me…

by Phel Jacobsen | Originally Published May 15, 2018 | Phel’s Thoughts I have wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl, but my mother convinced me…