In early April 1987, a core group of women from Haverhill came together to officially form the Haverhill Garden Club. Over the years, the club has been actively involved with local gardens, hosting numerous fundraising activities, and sponsoring the old Haverhill Garden Walk, which attracted visitors from throughout New England.
Almost every weekend during the good weather since the founding date 38 years ago up until a few years ago, the Haverhill Garden Club had been involved with events in the Haverhill area that highlighted many of the home gardens, municipal and business plantings and other programs including the sponsorship and a scholarship of local students seeking a future in lawn, garden, forest or other programs that they intended as their lifeàwork.
Some notable names from the past for the first plank of officers included Founding President Beverly Brown, Secretary Mimie Emory, Secretary Katharine Blaisdell, and Treasurer Ada Guck. Each year after 1987, club members gathered and elected new officers, continued to operate under their bylaws, and created a complete slate of interesting projects for members and the public to participate in.
They had a varied list of seasonal projects they worked on, many of them still growing and blossoming to this day. Some of those projects included planting flowers at the triangle between the two Haverhill Commons, seasonal floral displays at several areas throughout the town, and creating a townwide house tour for the benefit of the Haverhill Garden Club and Cottage Hospital.
For their monthly meetings, they would travel near and far to bring horticultural programs to the public. There was a myriad of guest speakers, guests, activities, and educational seminars that the Haverhill Garden Club created and held at main venues in towns and cities throughout New Hampshire.
In its first two years of operation, the Haverhill Garden Club became a member of the New Hampshire Federation of Garden Clubs. It held a special dinner to celebrate its new affiliation. Each year, the club would fund or sponsor a new initiative that helped beautify the area.
It would not be unusual to see 10 or 15 busy women working on planting bulbs and flowers in front of a library or other town building in the region. Many times, they were busy installing nesting boxes for birds, hanging Christmas swags and bows, holding programs on wildflowers, sponsoring the entire flower show, making floral arrangement techniques available, and discussing seasonal decorating tips for businesses and households.
The club also participated in the New Hampshire State Flower Show in Manchester. In the spring of many years ago, Bruce Lake held a program on pruning trees and shrubs. They spruced up the area around the Ladd Street School and planted a multitude of tulips at the Haverhill Academy building.
The club conducted ongoing garden walks throughout the area. It hosted fund-raising plant sales on the Haverhill Commons, as well as in yards and the public regions of various local towns. Professional artist Allianora Rossi, who had previously illustrated many Time-Life hard-bound books on American flowers, held an art show where she displayed her works to hundreds of people.
Later officers included President Joan Wolter, Vice President Polly Marvin, Vice President Marte Teschner, Secretary Kathy Dingman, Secretary Glenna Ackerman, and Treasurer Ada Guck. In the late 1980s and early 1900s, there were about 46 members on the Haverhill Garden Club rolls.
It was around that time that they were holding a meeting, probably at Betty GrayàBliss Tavern home on the corner of Court and School Streets, that a young moose decided to take a stroll on the Common.
Beverly Brown drew a handsome colored image of the moose, and the club adopted it for their official logo for the Haverhill Garden Club. Other art renderings included spectacular drawings by artist Rossi and others who loved to create outdoor images for their favorite club.
Club members also worked on conservation programs and wetlands protection efforts. They held a class on low-maintenance gardening and enjoyed an outdoor session at the Glazier Hollow Nursery, which focused on groundcover.
The club undertook extensive beautification work on the grounds of the Grafton County Nursing Home and the adjacent Grafton County Superior Court building, including raking, digging, and seeding. The members enjoyed being creative with their plantings for the Grafton County Memorial Garden located adjacent to the Grafton County Home.
During a planting session at a garden near the Grafton County Courthouse building, members discovered a complete set of civilian clothes buried in a pile of leaves in the interior of an older garden.
Police figured it was a drop-off point for a set of clothes for a prisoner who had planned an escape, dump his prison clothes, get dressed up in his new duds, and slip away to freedom. Police kept a close eye on the drop-off site, but no escape attempt was made that year.
Although the club continued with its good community work until only a few years ago, the membership has dropped to less than a dozen gardeners. Like all of us, the members have grown older and are unable to keep up with the busy schedule that the early members had when the Haverhill Garden Club was younger.
Some of the names of those who participated in the Haverhill Garden Club included Glenna Ackerman, Becky Anderson, Lynn Bandy, Donna Baker, Patricia Brady, Dale Bromley, Beverly Brown, Valerie Brown, Judith Cesari, Carolyn Danielson, Mary Campbell Koch, Phyllis Cleveland, Patrricia Cook, Carol Coon, Margaret Cope, Esther Crino, Catherine Dingman, Barbara Dunbar, Betsy Eton, Gail Eastman, Elaine Elliott, Winifred Elsner, Barbara Foote, Cathy Gherardi, Betty Gray, Carol Hard, Adak Guck, Marie Hausmann, Nina Hooker, June Klitgord, Lee Kryger, Kay Lake, Ella Lang, Terry Layden, Kristin Lehmann, Margo Ludwig, Marilyn Martin, Pauline Marvin, Mary Mudge, Helga Mueller, Marianne Preiser, Darlene St. Marie, Karen Rajsteter, Janine Salmon, Marilyn Seminerio, Mary Simpson, Helen Smith, Dorothy Spies, Martha Steenburgh, Polly Tafrate, Joyce Tompkins, Martha Teschner, Anne Thompson, Cary Vaughn, Terry Ward, Ruth Wellington, Joan Wolter, and Lara Wolter.

Have a story?