History of the
North End
Flower Club
1920-1950
MRS. A. J. SELTZER
This brief, informal history, sketching some of the early day activities and accomplishments of the club, was prepared and given at the Annual Home Coming Party, October 13, 1950 in the Wilsonian Hotel.
In response to many requests from members, both new and old, it is now made available to those who care to have a
сору.
If, in reading, it brings back happy memories to some of the older members and acquaints the newer ones with some of the names and endeavors of this Pioneer band, then it will have achieved a noble purpose.
I am sure when the idea of organizing a club first occurred to Miss Wilber, she had no conception of how big we would grow, nor how wide-spread her influence would be.
There were three garden clubs in Seattle at that time, but they were limited either to one specific flower or as to membership.
Miss Wilber felt there should be a club with a wider scope, one which would create more interest in growing more flowers, with which to beautify our homes and city.
About 1919, a group of five women, members of the Seattle Rose Society of which Miss Wilber had been one of the Founders) decided to go ahead with her idea and see what would happen.
These five were MRS. PLATNER, at whose home the first meeting was held, MRS. H. E. GRAHAM, MRS. C. R. SEAGREN, MRS. ANNE REILLY and MISS WILBER. In the spring of 1920, three others, MRS.
J. D. BAUGHN, MRS. HARRIETT CROSS and MRS. MARION KEMP joined with them and formulated plans for a flower show. These women are the charter members of our club.
This first show was held in the Randall-McLoughlin Building, on Greenwood Avenue at 87th, on July 2 – 3, 1920. To start the ball rolling, Miss Wilber had hand bills printed, announcing the Show and inviting people to bring in their flowers. Then she and her uncle, MR. A. P. LESTER, drove up one street and down another, distributing these hand bills.
The results were most gratifying; when the show opened there were 700 entries in the 10 classes, 6 of which were for Roses, one each for Annuals, Perennials, Garden Bouquets, and Basket of Mixed Flowers. This surely justified her belief that people were really interested. At this show Mrs. Reilly sat just inside the door, note book in hand, and as people brought in their entries she’d ask whether they would be interested in joining a flower club? Again, the response was wonderful, she got 91 signatures.
In a write-upon the event, one of the newspapers said: The show was received with so much enthusiasm that the ladies decided to organize a North End Rose Society and make the show an annual event.” second show was held in 1921 – with 17 classes; there were 300 entries excluding community exhibits from the various districts and after this show the club was formed – and so a club was born.
A meeting was called; women came from various districts such as Woodland Park, Ballard, Greenwood, Green Lake, Phinney Ridge, Crow Hill, North Park and Viewlands. A chairman was appointed from each district whose duty it was to keep her group informed of the special activities – of which there seemed to be plenty. This group of Chairmen eventually became the Executive Board.
At this meeting there were 28 present, the club was named, “NORTH END FLOWER CLUB” and the first officers were elected. They were:
President – Miss Rena Wilber
Secretary – Mrs. Anne Reilly
Recording Secretary – Mrs. A. S. Collins treasurer
Treasurer – Mrs. H. E. Graham
Dues were 50cents per year, meetings were potluck affairs held in a vacant store building at 87th and Greenwood where we sat on counters, boxes and a few chairs. At the end of the year there were about 75 members and in Mrs. Graham’s final report there was 36¢ left in the treasury.
About this time, Spring 1922, a memorial tree planting was started on the highway between Seattle and Tacoma by various civic groups, honoring the unknown dead of World War 1. Our club paid for two trees – numbers
307 and 308 in this planting.
The show that year was held in the new Lester-Monohan Building in Greenwood with 25 classifications and two outstanding features. One was an old-world garden, 30 feet square, the other a Venetian gondola 12 feet long, built entirely of wood moss and Caroline Testout roses, sitting in a pond complete with growing lilies, a little girl fairy passenger and manned by a miniature gondolier – 4 and 5 year old daughters and sons of some of the members – who were on in two-hour shifts throughout the show.
By 1923 there were about 150 members and we had no adequate meeting place in the North End, so the meetings were moved down town to Meves Cafeteria Auditorium and the show was held in Frederick & Nelson’s Auditorium. At this show a song, “The Thrush And The Rose” composed by MISS JESSIE DEE EMERICK (now Cook) and dedicated to the club was sung for the first time. In this show there were 44 classes, covering flowers of every description.
You will note that each year the club was growing bigger and the shows better, but Miss Wilber’s objective all along was – not mainly shows – but to create more interest in the knowledge of floral culture among the women of the north end through lectures and demonstrations by experts. Also to create more civic pride through beautifying our homes and undertaking various civic projects. For nine long years she acted as program chairman and secured as speakers the best in the field, covering all phases of the work. In the spring of 1923 the club raised and donated $100 to pay for the plants for two of the rose beds then being planted at the Woodland Park Rose Garden. Flowers and plants were being given to the shut-ins and hospitals once a month; also the hospital ship,
‘Mercy” and the cruiser “Seattle” were supplied when they were in port.
One interesting sidelight I’d like to give here is of a nurse at the Seattle General Hospital telling her mother of a nice old lady who visited the hospital regularly, bringing large bouquets to the patients from her garden. The nurse, MRS. A. S. WILKERSON’S daughter and the “nice old lady” our MRS. CLARA BOWEN.
The show classification in 1925 had the first classes for artistic arrangements, beginning to show the influence of MISS TILLIE PIPER, art teacher at Broadway, and MRS. AUGUST SWANSON.
These artistic arrangement classes were for:
- Console table arrangement
- Basket of flowers
- Bowl of flowers
I want to tell you here, that outside of Miss Wilber, the biggest single inspiration and influence ever in our club came from Mrs. Swanson. She came to us with years of experience as a floral decorator, with a wealth of talent and ability, all of which she was always so willing to share and was such a joy to work with. Miss Piper, too, was most generous with her
time and talent and gave us much in the way of color harmony and in painting lessons in floral paintings to a group of members.
This year, too, Miss Wilber introduced two new roses, namely: “Myra”, one of the parents of her “Ruth Alexander” and “Tillicum”.
It was in 1924 that the club won an award of an electric coffee service at the Western Washington Fair at Puyallup. This trophy was raffled off, netting the club $125 which was given to purchase more rose beds at Woodland Park.
In November, 1925 the first fall or winter show was held – one of the interesting entries was a basket of Easter Lillies grow out of doors from seed by MRS. FLICKINGER.
One write-up of this show says, “The Party lasted all day, after which the flowers from the Show were sent to Firland Sanatorium. This so-called “Party” was the beginning of our present Home Coming, though very different from the ones we have today. While those were enjoyed by all it was a tremendous amount of work. They were really indoor picnics and flower shows, plus sometimes a plant or gift exchange thrown in, and the women worked like horses. As I look back over the years I wonder how we ever did all the things we did – Bazaars in the spring to raise funds for the
June Show, then putting on the show, another show and home coming in the fall and then the Christmas Party for the inmates at the County Poor Farm. But the Pioneer spirit and will carried us on.
The Show in 1926 had 45 classes, a new one was for the
“Best Corsage Bouquet”. (Whatever that was.) Mrs.Reilly and MRS. PIPER were awarded honorary memberships this year. Mrs. Piper, the mother of Miss Tillie, was a dear little old lady, 92 years old then. She had brought seed of the water forget-me-nots with her from her home in France in 1874 and planted them along the creek in Piper’s Canyon. It is said that seed from these plants washed down the creek and spread all over the north end and may still be found growing in many areas.
A big civic project of the club this year was decorating the tables at the Chamber of Commerce for the luncheon they gave for Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy, on his visit to Seattle.
By this time the club was sadly in need of a place to hold its shows which had become of such widespread interest they drew hundreds of visitors and resulted in much favorable publicity for Seattle.
Mrs. Swanson made a beautiful big wishbone of blue flowers, typifying the club’s wish for a permanent home for their flower shows.
This was for the September meeting and after the meeting was taken down and hung in the City Hall.
One means of raising money for the club was a package exchange; each member would bring a 25¢ gift, receive a gift for which she paid 25¢ and this money was put into a fund to go toward a home for flower shows.
By 1927, Seattle was becoming known as the “Flower City”. The club donated flowers for many occasions, such as flowers for visitors to the National Educational Association Convention. The Club decorated the Olympic Hotel for the luncheon honoring Lindberg and did the decorations for other civic enterprises.
The Sweepstake at the show that year was awarded to MRS. FRED C. BROWN, who had entered a basket of twelve Golden Emblem roses and the sweepstake rose was taken from that basket. She had been out in her yard that morning at 4, cutting flowers and working on the show from then on. She’d just gone home when the judging began, then received a frantic call from Miss Wilber, “For goodness sake hurry up and get down here with something besides a milk bottle to put your sweepstake rose in!” That was the first she knew she had won any-thing.
In 1928 the Central Flower Committee, another project of Miss Wilber’s, was organized with Miss Wilber as Permanent Chairman. This was the parent organization of our present Civic Garden Center, and she now had two fast growing “children”. T his year, too, the CityCouncil voted $5,000 to be spent improve the building which had been secured in Woodland Park in which to hold Flower Shows. This was a real reward for much hard work and earnest endeavor on the part of Miss Wilber and a group of her friends among whom were MRS. H.F. ALEXANDER, MRS. AGATHA NOEL-PATON and MRS. R.D. MERRIL, who not only gave their moral support to our undertakings but each contributed a check for $50.
This year, too, the first big fall plant sale was held at Home Coming time with our beloved MRS. WOLPERT in charge-a responsibility she held as long as she lived.
The year 1929 was another big year in the history of the club. The first flower show was held in “Floral Hall” in Woodland Park and the building was dedicated by the Central Flower Committee with several of the city’s dignitaries on hand to officiate. The shew was an outstanding success, resulting in much publicity for “Seattle, the City of Flowers”. Tea and cookies were served to visitors and corsages made and given away also – both enormous undertakings. Each year the show would have some specific theme, with one outstanding exhibit; such as one waterfall and pool, once a colonial garden, a setting for a June bride and garden, a wishing well, a southern plantation, also a patriotic setting was carried out to furnish worthwhile features for the shows.
In 1930 the club decorated the luncheon tables again for the Chamber of Commerce when they gave a luncheon to honor Helene Madison for her famous championship swimming. Also put on a demonstration in flower arrangement in the Dorothy Neighbors Department of the Seattle Times.
At this demonstration Mrs. Swanson again showed her skill and gave us much in the way of combining suitable flowers and foliage in harmonizing settings. As one president remarked one time when we were worrying over a project, “Don’t worry when Mrs. Swanson gets on the job things just sorta go together all right.”
About this time the beautiful Deodar which stands at the intersection of Ravenna Boulevard and Green Lake Way was planted by our club – a pair, one on either side were planted but due to soil conditions one did not survive; it has been replanted at least five times without success – but the one is a beautiful specimen today. This tree was decorated by the Green Lake Commercial Club which was the beginning of decorating outdoor Christmas trees idea. This year, too, highway beautification plans were launched on a big scale and our club undertook the project of planting a strip 80 feet wide and 1000 feet long on the Everett Highway where Holman Road comes in.
The women gathered from the woods, fir, spruce, hemlock pine, dogwood tree, vine maple, wild currant and rhododendrons. They bought or donated Babylon willow, hard maple, locust catalpa, mountain ash, Laburnum and many other plants. One plant of English ivy planted there was brought from the ivy growing on the wall at Mount Vernon, planted by George Washington in 1785.
Not long after this, the Highway Department selected this spot to use for their gravel dump – Highway Beautification? Many hours of back-breaking labordone by our ladies – to say nothing of the expense – all gone to waste!
“Recognition Lane” at Sand Point was started, this year. This was a planting of Cedrus Deodar placed 20 feet apart along Sand Point Way and named for living people who merited outstanding recognition.
Our club planted a tree and named it for Miss Wilber.
Along with all the other activities was a project which was always a pleasure to be able to participate in. This was the parties our club was giving each year for the inmates of the County Poor Farm at Georgetown.
We were the first group to attempt to do anything for these old folks though later other organizations were sponsoring parties and programs at various times throughout the year. Our parties first started through a remark from Mr. Lester to Miss Wilber that he “wished something might be done for them!” Many of the old fellows out there had been previously employed by Mr. Lester and his friend Mr. Jack McAcheran in their construction work along the waterfront and Mr. Lester often visited them; hence his desire that something be done and “something was done”. We started first in a very small way -Just what funds could be raised and donations – warm clothing, cakes, jellies, jams, candy, fruit and ice cream.
Members would bring their contributions to the December meeting and after the meeting a caravan would go out to the home, taking the table decorations used at the meeting, plus the other materials and decorate the tables and serve the goodies; provided some entertainment for the evening meal at 5 o’clock. In those days it was surely a sorry place to see.
The huge dining room reeked; for dishes they had old tin cups and tin plates coated with grease. Tables and chairs were simply untouchable.
The inmates acted so scared and unhappy that you wondered how human beings could exist under such horrible conditions. It could not be called living by any stretch of imagination. It was pitiful to see those old folks gather up every scrap of decorations to take with them to their cots when they left the tables. The first outside help on this project came one year when Mr. Lester gave Miss Wilber a check for $50 to buy smoking tobacco for the old men. One day shortly after he told his friend Mr.
McAcheran about it when they met for lunch and a game of pool, as they often did. Thereafter, when they played, they dropped their winnings in a kitty which was given to Miss Wilber for “tobacco money” for
these parties. Each year the club was endeavoring to do more for these old folks. Many of us spent many sleepless nights after a visit to this horrible place.
During the depression there were from 375 to 400 men and from 60 to 85 women inmates housed there. Mr. MAcheran began contributing a check each year, first for $50, then $75 and later $100 as the need grew for
more. With this money and through the cooperation of many of our friends, we were getting large sheet cakes, ice cream, candy, oranges and apples for all, in addition to which each man received a tin of pipe tobacco and 1 small bag of candy and each woman a bar of nice toilet soap and either a bottle of hand lotion or can of talc, nicely gift wrapped, also a prettily wrapped package of candy. I have often wondered where the soap came from that was furnished by the home – dark yellow in color, putrid in odor. I have never seen such an inferior product in the worst of backwoods stores and camps, though I’d thought some called “Lennox” was plenty bad. You can well vision how welcome a bar of lux or Cashmere Bouquet was to those old ladies.
The first party we had after a new superintendent and matron were installed was truly a great surprise and a very pleasant one. They were Mr. and Mrs. George Smith – she had belonged to our club for a short while years before, when they lived in the north end.
The floors, tables and chairs were thoroughly scrubbed hotel china replaced battered old tin ware, a Christmas tree was set up in one end of the room, the inmates were cleaned up and so much happier. It certainly was a startling change from what it had been under the old regime. These parties were continued until the home was abandoned and the inmates were placed out in nursing homes.
Orchids should go to our friends who aided us so wonderfully year after year, in making it possible for us to spread our dollars to cover so much. They were MISS MABLE HAECKER, who was manager of a Van de Kamp’s Bakery and bought our cakes for us, MR. J. F. LOVELL for the wonderful buys of tobacco, candies and fruits he secured through Schwabacher’s Grocery Company where he was buyer, MR. RAY RAPP, manager of the Drug Department at Rhodes 10¢ Store, for the soaps and lotions, F.
L. BOUTWELL and MR. CALDWELL at Zellerback Paper Company for cellophane and ribbon for candies; also to a host of talented entertainers who responded so willingly to provide the entertainment features. BERT LINDGREN, ARIZONA JOE, BILL KEIN, to name a few.
During the early years of our club’s existence everything had been done as informally as possible and we were some 13 or 14 years old when it was deemed advisable to draft a set of by-laws so we would have something to guide us if and when the need arose. Here another grand person, MRS. ETHEL UTTER, came to our rescue with her knowledge of Parliamentary Procedure. She not only helped materially in drafting our first By-Laws, but has aided us many times since when we needed a guiding hand.
In 1932 a second tree was planted in Recognition Lane at Sand Point by the club and named for Mrs. Swanson.
At the 1933 show a most outstanding exhibit was a picture of President Roosevelt created by Mrs. Swanson and her son Ted. Made entirely of flowers on a background of moss it was 5 feet 3 inches tall. Pink candytuft was used for the face, blue cornflowers for eyes with yellow ranunculus pupils, statice for the mouth and brown seed pods of Spirea Van Houti for hair. The coat was copper beach leaves, white syringa collar and a striped tie of Larkspur and gypsophila.
During all these years Miss Wilber was busy with her pet hobby, roses. She had organized and conducted one class in rose hybridization in 1926 or ’27 and several of the women had grown rose seedlings and exhibited their own handiwork, among whom there were MRS. HARRY EVANS, MRS. C. L. THOMPSON and MRS. BOWEN.
In 1936 – 37 another class of about 40 interested in Hybridization was organized and conducted by Miss Wilber as part of the regular meetings each month. This was at the time her beautiful “Ruth Alexander” was patented and put on the market and there was much interest in Hybridizing.
Another member who deserves honorable mention in MRS.
M. W. ISLE who first conceived the idea of establishing a Library within the club and who headed that committee of 3 and worked tirelessly for about the first 5 years. MRS. E. N. STONE and myself were the other 2 members of that committee. The Library has continued to grow until today it is of valuable assistance to our club members.
These are most of the highlights of the early years of the club. Though some have not been mentioned but to which we can point with pride, I would add the decorating of the yacht Acquilo for the celebration honoring the return of the World fliers, decorating the Seattle yacht Club for the reception given Queen Marie from Romania. We had a hand, too, in organizing the Washington State Federation of Garden Clubs.
When the Arboretum at the University of Washington was begun our club made several contributions to this worthy undertaking. In December of 1937 we contributed $110 for a planting of English rhododendrons and year later gave 40 Ruth Alexander rose bushes, Miss Wilber added 10, which were planted along the fence between the Arboretum and Broadmoor. Another rhododendron planting costing $105 was given in 1940 and several contributions have been made since; such as books for their Library, $40 for construction of some much needed soil bins in 1942. During the war years when help was very difficult to get, groups of our members worked very faithfully stratifying seed, transplanting and weeding in the greenhouse.
Nor have I told you that our beloved Founder is a woman of many talents. She is a successful music teacher having taught many years in Chicago before coming west. She paints lovely floral pictures and some years ago when the Seattle Gas Company and Safeway Stores sponsored a contest she stepped in and walked off with the first prize which was a Tappan gas range, with her recipe for Beef and Beans. The recipe – as printed in the Times: Soak 2 cups cranberry or bayo beans over night. In the morning brown 2 or 3 pounds fatty short ribs, add 1 large onion sliced, a bowl of cut celery, cover with hot water, season with salt, garlic optional, bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer 3 hours, stirring occasionally, add hot water as needed. Miss Wilber also had the honor of being the first woman Hybridizer ever registered in the National Rose Society.
Perhaps some day a more complete history will be written, one which will review all the projects, and once begun, always carried through!
The club has carried on some years under many difficulties; war years were trying times but worthwhile projects were accomplished – decorating chapels, U.S.O., supplying flowers for Vets in hospitals, growing Victory Gardens, etc. All these have helped us to earn our record for work well done.
Orchids, too, should go to the grand husbands who back up our endeavors and lend a hand in our big undertakings year after year, saying nothing of our use of the family car many times over.
We can all be proud to be a part of this organization and help to keep up the traditions established. We have a reputation to maintain of being a group of women who work well together, can always be depended upon to cooperate and remain friends always.
I think this little poem describes us nicely:
THE GARDEN CLUB
The garden club’s the place you go
To tell about the things you grow;
And what is shrub, and which is weed,
And when to plant each bulb and seed.
Why the iris needs a drink,
Should we mulch or prune the pink?
When should we hoe the tulip bed,
And rake the leaves, now brown and dead?
But of all the things we ever do,
This is the secret I’ll tell to you,
Though leaves may die, the flowers may fade,
The friends that the Garden Club has made
Will be with us to the shining end,
For a gardener is a faithful friend.
MAY MCLEOD PITT
Printed in 1936 in “Garden Poems”