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01/12/2023 08:45 AMWith its adult and junior groups, the North Haven Garden Club has participated in a myriad of activities, from uplifting community-wide beautification, friendly floral-based competitions amongst members, and art and crafts projects for senior citizens. All of this germinated from one of its co-founders and its first president, longtime North Haven resident Lois Stover.
Along with being one of its founders and its first president, Lois, 97, is the only remaining Charter member of the Garden Club who is alive. She recalls the origins of the Club and its establishment in 1954 as a simple one in planting the seeds of knowledge about everything regarding nature.
“[It was] to share new information, having speakers we could get, who knew different subjects,” Lois said. “We had a little garden that is still there behind what was the old library. We met in the basement when we started.”
The following year, as president, she oversaw its inauguration into the Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut. Since then, she has kept the nature-oriented spirit of the Club alive in her home, with her floral printed chairs and couches, and embroidered portraits of flowers and an owl hanging on the wall running up the staircase to the second floor. She still has binders and programs dating back to the early days of the Club, with cutouts of articles and photographs of Club members and their activities, and the full documents of the Club “Constitution,” codifying the roles and responsibilities, and the missions of the organization and its members, with the blue lupin flower as its emblem.
Gardening was a multigenerational practice in Lois’ family, picking it up from her parents, specifically her mother during her childhood growing up in New Haven.
“It was always in my genes, I think,” she says. “Most [of my] family were farmers, so I was always interested in that. In my backyard, I had a garden. We always had potatoes growing in our yard. It was much more country in those days. One time we lived on State Street, and I had a garden there. Some of their girls in our neighborhood, we all had different little plots and planted.”
The multigenerational love for gardening and the overall appreciation for nature, including plants and animals, has continued on from her youth to the Junior Garden Club, with young appreciators of gardening carrying on the Club’s original mission of spreading joy and wonder through the North Haven community.
Young or old, the same mindset is necessary, according to Lois.
“You don’t mind not getting dirty. That’s all part of it, groveling in the soil,” she said. “Growing things from seed and having them mature and grow. It’s a very satisfactory thing. That’s for sure.”
Lois recalls that when the club began, all the members would have a “green thumb,” to show they were a dedicated, avid grower with a love for nature.
Being a giving person has been another important part of being an active and enthusiastic planter. It’s not just about cultivating plants and organizing atrium-worthy floral arrangements but putting smiles on people’s faces.
“We used to go to the hospice, too and arrange flowers for the people there,” she said. “Sometimes they’d work with us. We do that all the time on different holidays. It picks them up a little bit, makes them happy.”
What Lois is most proud of, seeing what she helped create unravel into a persistently active organization, is how the mutual love for all things nature has connected members with one another and what they can do for someone’s day.
“The fellowship among the workers, especially at a hospice,” she said. “And see the young ones come along, that’s the most important thing.”
Remembering why the Club began, Lois reads a few passages from a food-themed poem printed in one of its brochures that captures their dedication and appreciation for nature and its freshly grown food, and the nourishment and universal joy it brings to all.
“Plant three rows of peas: peace of mind, peace of heart, peace of soul. Plant four rows of squash: squash gossip, squash indifference, squash grumbling, squash selfishness.”
She ends with a vegetable:
“Lettuce us be faithful, lettuce us be kind, lettuce be patient, lettuce really love one another.”