The Davenport Woman’s Club December Meeting: Seed Packets for Gifts and Honoring Botanical Heroes Ernest Henry Wilson and John T. Temple

December 4, 1930

On this day, the Quad-City Times shared a sweet little update from the garden department of the Davenport Woman's Club.

The seed and bulb committee... presented each member with a dainty Christmas package in bright-hued Christmas wrappings, containing seeds for next spring's sowing.

Fifty seed packages and ten sacks of dahlia bulbs went to the women who attended.

But that's not all. Their education program was spot on:

Mrs. Charles Irwin spoke on the Arnold Arboretum at Cambridge, Mass., and its former keeper, the late E. H. Wilson, who passed away in October, and who was known as "Chinese" Wilson from his travels and long residence in China.

Mrs. P. T. Burrows suggested that the department send to the new keeper and ask for seeds of rare plants [for] Davenport gardens and the public park as experimental plantings in this Mississippi Valley region.

 

[Then,] Mrs. Mathilde P. Koehler spoke on "Famous Gardens."

Mrs. Koehler [who] has traveled extensively told of the wonderful gardens one finds in different parts of the United States.

She also paid a tribute to the late John Temple, a well-known florist of Davenport and told of the lilac tree which he had planted in her garden, this being one of [only] a few in [this] city.

 

[Finally,] Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Cassling gave songs to the accompaniment of Miss Lois McDermott at the piano.

[The] decorations were of prettily trimmed Christmas trees.

Now that's a meeting!