Archaeologist, naturalist, travel lecturer, and author Alonzo William Pond was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on June 18, 1894, the first child of William Samuel and Marie Olson Pond. William Pond was co-owner of Pond & Bailey Dry Goods, a business he inherited from his father, Samuel S. Pond, and the Ponds were well-established economically and socially. Much to his father's dismay, the retail world held no charm for Alonzo, who displayed instead an interest in natural history, particularly birdwatching. In 1905 this hobby led young Pond to make the acquaintance of Janesville's noted naturalist, Halvor L. Skavlem (1848-1939). The two became close friends, and Skavlem introduced Pond to archaeology and other scientific pursuits.
An able student when interested, Pond did poorly in subjects that he did not like. This trait, coupled with his small stature and childhood illnesses found him still in high school at age nineteen. For the 1913-1914 school year the Ponds sent Alonzo and his brother Edwin (b. 1897) to Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. In the following year Alonzo enrolled in Beloit College where he reverted to his former study habits. He did well in the sciences, however, and spent more time working on collections of the college's Logan Museum of Anthropology than on his regular courses. In 1917 Pond left school to become a cook and ambulance driver with the American Field Service in France. The experience provided the self-discipline necessary to finish a B.S. degree in 1920.
In 1920 Pond moved to Grant, Florida, where he operated a roadside restaurant, the Tent Tavern. The following year Pond won a scholarship to participate in the first class of the American School in Europe for Prehistory Study established in Paris by Yale anthropologist George Grant MacCurdy. Pond spent the next eighteen months touring the Old Stone Age sites of France and attending the University of Paris before returning to the United States to start work on his M.A. in anthropology at the University of Chicago.
Pond's pursuit of the M.A. was interrupted in 1924 by George Collie, director of the Logan Museum, who asked Pond to return to Europe to purchase artifacts for the museum. Eventually assuming the additional responsibility of associate curator, Pond led archaeological expeditions to North Africa and the Sahara in 1925, 1929, and 1930. In 1928, the year in which he completed his M.A., Pond served as archaeologist in Mongolia for Roy Chapman Andrews' third Asiatic expedition.
In 1925 Pond began a pen friendship with Dorothy Long, a native of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin (b. August 26, 1900). They were married on July 20, 1926, five weeks after their first meeting. Their first child Chomingwen was born in 1927; their son Arthur was born in 1932.
In 1931 the Depression and administrative changes at the Logan Museum left Pond without a job. He began work on a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Chicago, but left after two semesters. Over the next seven years, Pond took what work he could find. For several years he worked as an archaeologist for the National Park Service. Later he was associated with an expedition to Rainbow Bridge/Monument Valley, Utah, and archaeological work at Jamestown Island, Virginia, and Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. During 1935-1937 Pond was superintendent of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp. In addition he was a writer and lecturer on travel.
From 1940 through 1945 the family found steady work developing and managing the newly-discovered Cave of the Mounds, a tourist attraction near Madison, Wisconsin. In 1949 they moved to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, where Pond worked as an information specialist with the Arctic, Desert, Tropic Information Center (ADTIC). After his retirement in 1958 the family lived in Minocqua, Wisconsin, and between 1958 and 1968 they developed and managed Wisconsin Gardens, a nearby tourist site. After 1968 Pond devoted himself primarily to writing and community affairs.
Alonzo Pond died on December 25, 1986; Dorothy Pond died on November 14, 1987.
