Historical Notes The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary The Native Plant Reserve in Glenwood Park A year-by-year account of The Martha Crone Years 1933 - 1958 Gary D. Bebeau 2021 Revised ©Friends of the Wild Flower Garden Inc. www.friendsofthewildflowergarden.org P O Box 3793 Minneapolis MN 55403 Contents 1 Introduction 2 Maps 5 1933 8 1933 Butler Memorial Association 23 1934 27 1935 34 1936 42 1937 50 1938 56 1939 64 1940 73 1941 81 1942 88 1943 93 1944 107 1945 116 1946 119 1947 123 1948 129 1949 135 1950 140 1951 146 1952 152 Table of Contents 1953 158 1954 163 1955 167 1956 172 1957 178 1958 183 Subsequent events 188 Appendix 189 Gertrude Cram 189 Garden Fencing 191 Aquatic Pools 199 Bird Feeding Station 217 Natural Springs in area 222 1951 Garden History 228 1952 Self-conducted tour 233 1952 Friends founders 238 Clinton Odell History 242 1956 Fern Glen Development 248 Index of names and places 254 Map and historical photo index 257 Plant photo index 261 1 Introduction This document in not a narrative, but a year-by-year account of the Curator’s activities in relation to the development and maintenance of this special area in Glenwood Park, as the area was named in the early years and later named Theodore Wirth Park in 1938 following Wirth’s retirement in 1935. The more detailed information here supplements the overview provided in the companion book - “This Satisfying Pursuit - Martha Crone and the Wild Flower Garden.” Martha Crone succeeded Eloise Butler as Curator of the Eloise Butler Wild Flower Garden on April 18, 1933, following Miss Butler’s death on April 10. Her appointment by Parks Superintendent Theodore Wirth was on a temporary basis “for such other time thereof as seems advisable and satisfactory.” The advisable and satisfactory time would last for 26 years. Martha had been providing various kinds of assistance to Miss Butler for 15 years previously. When Martha retired as Curator at the beginning of 1959 she continued advocating for the Garden in her position of Secretary, treasurer and newsletter editor of The Friends of the Wild Flower Garden, which was formed in 1952, until her retirement from those positions in 1971. In total, her years of service and support of the Garden totaled 53. She could say at the end “ I have devoted my life to what I consider this satisfying pursuit.” Documents: We would know far less than we do about Martha Crone and her activities if not for the diligent work of Martha Hellander. In the late 1980s she began research into the life of Eloise Butler, which culminated in the publication of her book The Wild Gardener in 1992. As part of her research she had an opportunity to visit a number of times with Martha Crone while Mrs. Crone was in a nursing home in Minneapolis. When Martha Crone passed away, her daughter Janet was selling the house and Martha Hellander was invited to review the hoard of documents that Martha Crone had stored away. It was here she found all the notes made for Martha’s newsletter issues, her diaries, correspondence between her and Eloise Butler, some of Miss Butler’s diaries and Miss Butler’s long lost Garden Logs. The circumstances could not have been more fortuitous for this history as Janet was killed in a car accident four months after her mother’s death. Martha Crone did not write essays about plants and about her activities as Eloise Butler had done, but her Garden Logs, diaries and her annual reports to the Board of Park Commissioners provide much information about daily events. Later when she became editor of The Fringed Gentian™, she had a vehicle to promote her philosophy of what the Garden should be. 2 Introduction Photos: Martha Crone’s Kodachrome collection of over 4000 slides was passed from Janet to Martha Hellander who then passed it to The Friends. After sorting and using these slides in lectures over several years, these and other documents were deposited at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1993. These slides were taken between 1948 and 1957 and a number of them are used to illustrate these history years. Other photos are courtesy of the person or entity credited. Landscape: More detail is known about the layout of the Garden during the Martha Crone years compared to the previous years. Her photographs are helpful, as are the notations she made in her log and in her diaries. In addition, her hand drawn map of the Garden and the text used in her 1952 Self Guided Tour Brochure provide a way to see how the landscape then differs from today. Her tenure included some large changes in the landscape. First was the fencing of the perimeter of the Garden in 1938, then the abandonment of the Mallard Pool area in the north meadow, followed by the addition of the upland area in 1944, with her final landscape change being the Fern Glen in the northeast corner. The Friends: The founding of Friends of the Wild Flower Garden in 1952 was another important event of these years. Both Martha and Clinton Odell believed that the continuing budget restraints faced by the Park Board could eventually result in the loss of the very things that made the Garden so special and valuable to the city of Minneapolis. In addition, the efforts of the Park Board could be supplemented by a group of concerned citizens. Garden Help: In the early years Martha worked alone, as did Eloise Butler. Sometimes her husband Bill, a dentist, came in to help on busy weekends, to help open the Garden on the first day in the Spring, to help with a special project, or to man the Garden when Martha could not be there. If heavy work was to be done, such as removal of damaged trees, the Park Board maintenance people were usually available. Later she had several workers from the Park Board available to her when needed during the late 1940s from 1946 through early 1949. Of those known are Clarence Larson, Eddy Subourin, Bjorne Herland and one, Fred Gau, being continuously employed through 1948. Others later, and with longer terms, included Sam Baker and Bob Clark. Ed Bruckelmyer is in her records in 1948 and 1949 and reappears several years later working with Ken Avery. Finally, in 1954 she again had the services of two employees, one being Ken Avery, who would be her successor as Curator when she retired in January 1959. The other being Ed Bruckelmyer. Mr. Avery was in fact hired by the Park Board as Mrs. Crone's assistant and 3 Introduction would be the first person in charge of the Garden who was always an employee of the Park System. Garden Name: The Garden was originally called the Wild Botanic Garden and then it was more commonly known as the Native Plant Reserve (sometimes Eloise Butler used ‘Preserve’). Eloise wrote in her early history “It was soon found that the term ‘Wild Botanic Garden’ was misleading to the popular fancy, so the name was changed to ‘Native Plant Reserve’.” (EB 1926 - The Wild Botanic Garden - Early History). In 1929 the Park Board renamed it the Eloise Butler Wild Flower Garden in the Curator’s honor. Martha Crone always referred to it as the Native Plant Reserve or simply as the “Reserve” except in her 1951 history and brochures used as handouts at the Garden. All Park Board correspondence and printed material from 1929 forward use the words “Eloise Butler Wild Flower Garden,” with “Wild Flower” as two words, up until 1969. In 1968 the Friends of the Wild Flower Garden petitioned to have “and Bird Sanctuary” added to the name and the Park Board approved in 1969, but made the name “Eloise Butler Wild Flower and Bird Sanctuary.” Letters of correspondence and newspaper articles from that period use that name (with an occasional reversion) until the Fall of 1986 when Mary Maguire Lerman, Coordinator of Horticulture wrote a memo about recent Garden activities to Friends President Gloria Miller, dated May 29, 1987, in which she states “PPS: The MPRB action taken last fall changes the Garden’s name to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary.” Meanwhile, The Friends had adopted “Wild Flower” in 1952 as part of their name and now the Garden name and the Friends name diverge. In this document I use “wild flower” as two words, as it was used during the time period. My references to the ‘Park Board’ refers during these years to the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners, which was renamed the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board in 1970. Many of Martha Crone’s records and historical records of The Friends are maintained at the Minnesota History Center. Weather data use here, when not from direct sources is from Historical Climatology of Minneapolis-St. Paul Area by Charles Fisk. Gary D. Bebeau 2019 A note on the type: The text is set in Palatino, headings in Baskerville Old Face and Century Schoolbook; captions are in Helvetica. 4 The Wild Botanic Garden in the time of Eloise Butler The features identified are names given by Eloise Butler. The original space set aside for the Garden was just three acres centering on the Treeless Swamp and Tamarack Bog. Within a few years the surrounding hillsides and the area of the North Meadow had been added resulting in a wild garden of around 20 acres. The existing back fence of the Garden closely follows the dotted line of the old path (later known as the “tarvia path”) that leads from Bubbling Spring on the east westward to where that path begins to make a great curve to the south between Gentian Meadow and Old Andrews Mount.