By the time Nevada Davis married Ralph Hitchcock in 1896, the determined woman from Mineral City, Ohio had graduated from Oberlin College, taught school, and been a reporter for newspapers from Cleveland to New York City. Upon her nuptials, she retired as editor of the women’s Sunday page at The New York Press. When Ralph died, in 1913, she kept her family afloat by continuing her career, becoming the home economics editor of The Philadelphia Record and a lecturer at Temple University.
When it was time to retire again in 1920, she settled in Westport and turned her pioneering spirit to another passion: gardening. Enlisting her friend, Amelia Cutler, a suffragist and wife of the noted architect Charles Cutler, the pair gathered together a group of like-minded folks – eight women and two men – and held the first meeting of what would become the Westport Garden Club.
Now celebrating its 100th birthday, the club has flourished and inspired in much the same way as the lovingly tended parks, plants, and inventive floral arrangements that bring beauty and distinction to all corners of town, says Louise Ward Demakis, a historian for the group and one of its former presidents.
“The early membership is like a who’s who of Westport,” she says. “You look at the names and there’s Bradley, Coley, Wakeman. Sara Crawford, Connecticut’s first female secretary of state was an early member.”
Known for its massive plant sale on Jesup Green on Mother’s Day weekend, the club will continue celebrating its centennial this month on September 28 with “Westport’s Town Treasures,” a much-anticipated flower show to be held at Saugatuck Congregational Church. The event, the first the club has mounted in a decade, will include exhibits on horticulture, design, photography, and more. There will also be a Flower Show competition, open to members of any National Garden Club-affiliated club, and held to their exacting specifications.
And that is no small feat. Kara McKenna-Wong and past president and publicity chair Kelle Ruden, who are co-chairing the show, attended NGC Flower Show School to learn how to put on a regulation event and trained as judges for future events. School included many hours of instruction and study, says Kara. “There are 29 individual tests,” she explains.
But both women are thrilled with their newfound knowledge and skills and the opportunity to celebrate the club and its membership’s dedication to Westport. Since its inception, the WGC has been placing its verdant stamp on everything from pine trees planted at the Southport Firehouse in 1929 to meticulously maintaining many town cemeteries to the creation of the Grace K. Salmon Park, a former dump on Imperial Avenue that now sports a pretty sundial to mark the club’s centennial. In addition to the many ways the club continues to beautify Westport, it also was instrumental in banning billboards through the town’s stretch of I-95, the founding of the Connecticut State Federation of Garden Clubs, the development of tree and shrub planting on the historic Merritt Parkway in Westport, and the establishment of the Connecticut College Arboretum.
Along the way, the Club has joined efforts big and small to bring beauty and a sense of magic and wonder to the town, Louise said. In the 1940s, that took the form of Victory Gardens that sprang up all over Westport. And a few years ago, as the coronavirus pandemic raged, club members devised Friday Flowers, statement plantings and containers of blooms that popped up for the unexpected enjoyment of town residents. Promoted through social media, the effort added a spark of normalcy and magic, Kara says.
“It really kept us together,” she says.
Recent projects include an award-winning garden created with children and Pivot Industries outside Bridgeport’s Waltersville School and and efforts to promote sustainability through pollinator pathways, says Kelle, who is particularly passionate about helping birds and insects find a welcome bounty and respite in town.
The garden club is always considering new members. Kara, Kelle, and Louise agree it’s the hard-working, warm, and knowledgeable members who keep them involved.
“It’s a couple of generations of women working together,” says Louise.
Nevada and Amelia wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Westport’s Town Treasures, the Westport Garden Club 100th anniversary flower show will be held from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28, at Saugatuck Congregational Church, 245 Post Road East, Westport. Open to the public, the suggested donation is $10.
“The early membership [of the Westport Garden Club] is like a who’s who of Westport."