EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region’s history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.
In this 1920s interview excerpt, Miss Elizabeth Iddings, granddaughter of Thomas Denny Webb, recalls the magnificent flower garden that once surrounded the old Edwards home:
“There were about one hundred different kinds of flowers in the yard of this old home, all the old-fashioned kinds and lots that we still see each summer. Miss Iddings at one time could recall all the 100 kinds, but many of them have gone from her memory now, and she can remember at present somewhere between 50 and 75 of them. The list includes: Roses, white, red, yellow, pink, Eglantine, Damask, Prairie Queen, George the Fourth, moss, Scotch, Burgundy and a rare red and white striped rose called the York and Lancaster; pansies, Johnny-jump-up, soldier-on-the-green; London pride, blue, yellow and white violets; blue bells; white, blue and pink hyacinths; crown imperial; sweet William; daffodils; jonquils; narcissus.
Yellow, red and bronze tulips; lady slippers; lilies of the valley; fleur-de-lis; blue flag; spiderwort; pinks and pheasant-eye pinks; phlox, Canterbury bell; primrose; foxglove; none-so-pretty; flowering almond; candytuft; verbena; white, orange, corn, spotted, field, tiger, African, and Japanese lilies; portulaca; nasturtium; crimson and yellow dahlias; bouncing Bet; live-for-ever; marigold; Rose of Sharon; golden glow; sweet-scented shrub. White and red peonies; white July lily; blue and pink larkspur; purple and white lilacs; snowball; weigelia; snapdragons; buttercups; trumpet creeper; feverfew; flowering locust; honeysuckle; spirea; bleeding heart; columbine; coreopsis, and one very unusual flower called colchicum. This is a purple flower with several blossoms on one stalk. The waxy leaves open up in the spring and then die down and later on in the summer the blossoms come up, apparently right out of the ground with no leaves around them.
The currants raised by the Webbs were both red and white, as were the raspberries. When Miss Iddings was asked how it came that each and every variety of flower, vegetable and fruit seemed so clear in her memory, she answered, “Well I ought to remember everything in the garden for after my grandfather died, the caretaker was dismissed and it fell mostly to my lot to do all the weeding and hoeing and caring for that great big garden, I got so I almost hated it.
“I used to try to argue with my grandmother into building a summerhouse at one side of the garden so I could have a place to sit down and rest once in a while and I had thought it would add to the attractiveness of the spot, but she never could agree with me. Everything in that garden had to be just so, too. Not a weed in it and asparagus had to be cut and berries picked every day during their season.”
Once the John Stark Edwards house, or the (Edwards-Webb-Iddings) house moved multiple times, much attention was spent bringing plants to each new location, and replicating Betsy Stanton Webb’s original garden. As we reflect on this excerpt from over 100 years ago, I hope it inspires readers to spend time in their gardens, as I did upon reading it.
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