Flowers in the ’30s in North Attleboro
The North Attleboro community-wide Big Read will be looking at the life of the town in the 1930s as it relates to To Kill a Mockingbird. One of the aspects of small town life featured in Harper Lee’s book is the importance of gardens and flowers to the people of the town. Three of the main women expressed themselves primarily through their gardens: Miss Maudie with her azaleas, Mrs. Dubose with her camellias and Mayella Ewell with her geraniums in six chipped-enamel slop jars.
North Attleboro has been home to beautiful gardens and an active Garden Club for a very long time. The 1930s saw the Garden Club’s tenth annual June Exhibition in June 1933. To quote the Evening Chronicle, “This was the first Iris show ever held by the club and was very successful, more than 150 different varieties, many of them of very recent introduction.”
The Garden Club had monthly meetings in the Elks’ Home, usually featuring guest speakers. One talked about growing gladiolus. Sometimes they visited gardens around town, seeing in 1934, the gardens of Mr. and Mrs. Harry W. Fisher (152 S Washington St.), Mrs. Ellen L. Mason (238 S. Washington St.), Merrill Marty (florist at 46 Washington), Fred Hayward and the Birch Hill Gardens. Popular flowers included iris, lupines, petunias, peonies and rock gardens.
Roses were also popular and Mr. Raymond Hoisington (83 Leonard St.) was famous for his collection of over forty varieties of Hybrid Tea roses. One website mentioned that a 1930s garden would have lots of formal rosebeds, though none are mentioned in “TKAM.”
Throughout the month of March, Nolan’s Flower (which has been in business for over 100 years) will be displaying arrangements of 1930s styles in the Richards Memorial Library. The library is grateful to the Angle Tree Garden Club who displays arrangements at the library every month and frequently donates gardening books to the collection. The Angle Tree club was founded in 1962.
This February sees two local flower shows: Rhode Island’s Spring Flower and Garden Show at the RI Convention Center, on the 21st through 24th and Attleboro Arts Museum’s show at the museum on the 27th through March 2.
Join the Big Read by reading To Kill a Mockingbird or the biography of Harper Lee, Mockingbird, and by attending one of the many events during the month of March. The opening event, at the Masonic Lodge at 1:30 on March 1, will present music and dance of the ‘30s. Visit the website RMLonline.org and click on The Big Read logo for more information or stop by at the library.
