A Gardening Heritage

Morning in Long Lake: 28 degrees. Here's the view from Mom and Dad's front deck.


It's true, in November, there isn't too much to see outside, not from a gardener's perspective, anyway. Even these late season asters have called it quits. But while Mom was at work, Dad and I had a few projects to keep us occupied.

We had a number of boxes of old photos and other family memorabilia to look through. This is a shot of my great-grandma Berns (that's her in the middle of the back row...before she was anyone's grandma, or even a Berns, for that matter!) with her brothers Townsend and Clarence and their mother in front.

I just love this picture. It's 1933, and that's Great Grandma B.'s lower half on the ladder, and her dog Tippy, who's apparently decided to help pick fruit or prune...or at the very least, mug for the camera.

Here's a pair of shots of my Granny, who was just Josephine back then. In the first photo, she's age six (that's likely my aunt Florence up in the tree to the left). The second shows her laden with rhubarb at age 7.

Here's another photo of Grandma Berns, taken in her garden at 305 Wood Ridge Avenue (actually, I believe that's where all but the first of these photos were taken) in the early 1960s. I do actually have some vague memories of her garden myself. And I can only assume that she grew allyssum, among many other things, as the scent of it always takes me back there.

And then there's this photograph, from a Halloween party in 1962. The butterfly is my Aunt Florence, the butterfly hunter is my Uncle Charlie...and yes, that's Great Grandma Berns in the background as a French maid!!