To celebrate and reminisce about the 75-year history of Great Bend Garden Club, 15 members gathered at the First Presbyterian Church on May 19 for a special tea and presentation by club member Teresa Bechand.
Teresa took the members back to 1941 when 19 women met for the first time as the Great Bend Garden Club. With photos, newspaper clippings, and minutes from the early meetings she traced interesting and amusing details about the beginning years of the club’s existence, the awards, the meeting formats, and the group’s community gardening projects up to the eventual creation in 1955 of the Great Bend Cemetery Rose Garden as its central project.
The memorabilia and scrapbooks which were shared were collected during the many years that past member and secretary Mae Weaver was with the club.
During the business meeting, Kerry Lampe reported on research she had done regarding possible Garden Club Shirts. Members who wish to buy shirts with a Garden Club logo may do so from Roth Embroidery with a choice of shirt styles and colors.
Delores Grose announced four new names are now on the memorial plaques.
Alice Young, Rose Garden chairman, reported that Tammi Wagner has mulched the roses with cypress mulch and Alice has fertilized them. The older varieties of roses with signs of black spot disease will be treated. The Rose Garden looks beautiful right now and is ready for Memorial Day. The cemetery staff will be donating a rose bush in honor of Mary Kummer Maneth.
Refreshments were served from a tea table by Carol Woodmansee and Pam Sweeney.
The next meeting of Garden Club will be in September with a field trip to Larned.