Garden Club focuses on beauty

By Laura McFarland
Rocky Mount Telegram

Friday, June 12, 2009

They always try to leave some beauty behind.

Whether the members of the Rocky Mount Garden Club are participating in a flower show, planting trees and flowers or decorating a building, they want to leave the area looking better than when they arrived, said Rose Bailey, hospitality chairwoman. That has been the club’s goal since it was started June 3, 1934.

“As you enter Rocky Mount from all areas, you are going to see “Welcome to Rocky Mount,” and that is what the garden club is. They try to beautify Rocky Mount so no matter which end you come into you are going to see something beautiful,” said Bailey of Rocky Mount.

More than 40 members past and present gathered Thursday afternoon at Bailey’s home to celebrate the garden club’s 75th anniversary, said Brenda Crocker, president. The members also held the celebration to mark National Garden Club Week.

The threat of bad weather moved the party inside, but it didn’t dampen their spirits. The women sang happy birthday, enjoyed snacks and shared memories from years of attending meetings and projects together.

Though the event was mostly a party, Crocker took time to recognize six past presidents who attended, some of the oldest members still in the group and visitors from the state organization.

Crocker only has been a member five years, but it didn’t take her long to realize how important the club has been in promoting education and appreciation for nature in Rocky Mount.

“Gardening is an ongoing learning process. I think it is a good way for us to come and learn and then for us to give back to the public by doing these different projects that we do,” said Crocker of Rocky Mount.

The club currently is cleaning up and landscaping Braswell Park downtown, Crocker said.

In the past, projects have included creating victory gardens during World War II, decorating Stonewall and the Rocky Mount Chamber of Commerce, planting trees downtown and at the Rocky Mount-Wilson Airport and landscaping the Vietnam Memorial on Sunset Avenue, Crocker said.

Much of the work they did has been lost by time and weather, but the club has made an indelible mark on generations of women since Kate Arrington started it all those years ago, Bailey said.

Georgia Mixon was pregnant with her oldest child 55 years ago when she attended her first club event, a class on flower arranging. The class turned out to be a judge’s certification course, which Mixon wasn’t sure she was ready to try.

“I didn’t mean to be doing all that. Here I was having this baby, and I was just going to learn how to fix flowers,” said Mixon of Rocky Mount.

The members convinced her to complete the course, join the club and go on to certify as a nationally accredited flower show judge. It is a decision she has not regretted.

Martha Tuttle, 89, knew what she was doing when she joined in 1948. She and her husband were interested in plants and had a greenhouse, and she thought the club would help her become a better gardener.

Tuttle most loved attending the club’s monthly meetings, which are held September to May. The meetings always feature an educational program on a wide range of topics, including holiday decorating, bird watching, plants from around the world and flower arranging.

The club also has small flower shows at each meeting with judging in two divisions, design and horticulture, Tuttle said.

Just as important as what the women learned, though, was the friends they made, Tuttle said.

“It has just been such a pleasure to be connected with the group all these years,” said Tuttle of Rocky Mount.

It is a connection that drew former club president Anita Itnyre back for the anniversary. Itnyre, who lives in Charlotte, was president from 1999 to 2001 and said it was one of the happiest things she has done in her life.

“It is just a pleasure to come to the meetings. You know how there are some meetings you say, 'Oh gosh, I’ve got to go,’ but you really don’t want to go? But it was never any effort to go to the garden club,” Itnyre said.

Margaret Barnes, 73, can’t remember the year or even the decade she joined. Her mother, Ethel Daughtridge, was so active in the club that Barnes feels like she has been a member most of her life. Daughtridge is the only member in the club’s history to become president of the state organization, the Garden Club of North Carolina Inc. in Raleigh.

Being at the party that marked the club’s 75th anniversary was thrilling for Barnes.

“I am just so tickled. At one time we were all growing older, and things got sort of slow as far as projects. Now, I am just very thrilled since our last two or three presidents have encouraged and gotten new members,” said Barnes of Rocky Mount.

Mary Lou Goodman and Robin Weisner, president and vice president of the state club, accepted invitations from the club to help mark their anniversary. Both women were pleasantly surprised by the group’s strong membership.

“The reason it is so strong is they continue to bring in new members and invite people to come to their club and invite people to participate in the work that they are doing. ... These ladies have a wealth of knowledge and experience in all things garden club,” Goodman said.

The club’s next meeting will be at 10 a.m. the fourth Thursday in September at Englewood United Methodist Church in Rocky Mount.

For information, call 443-6513.