Month: August 2012

You know there’s a story here

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“Mrs. Harriman [Florence Jaffrey] does [not] burn fences behind her. Washington, D.C. May 27 [,1927].

“In leaving for her new post as American Minister to Norway, Mrs J. Borden Harriman is not burning but leaving her fences behind her. The last time Mrs. Harriman was away from her Capitol home for any length of time she found a load of dirt from the excavation for the new home of the late Raymond T. Baker dumped on her front lawn upon her return. She sued for $23,000 but the case was settled out of court. This time she has had a high fence constructed around her property to prevent a recurrence of the same thing.”

Mrs. Harriman’s complaint said “that on the 22d of April, 1931, the defendants, ‘with force and arms, did break and enter into and upon the said ground of the plaintiff, and trod down, trampled upon, consumed, destroyed, and spoiled the grass, herbage, shrubbery, ornamental trees, then and there growing and being of great value,’ etc.”

Perhaps the fence should be even higher.

Photo by Harris & Ewing; both it and text in quotes via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.  Mrs. Harriman’s home was at the intersection of Ridge and Reservoir Roads — I believe in the Pallisades neighborhood (although I haven’t found a Ridge Road that intersects with Reservoir).

Love your neighbor; yet don’t pull down your hedge.
— Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack

Thanks to the blog Living in Kigali for including enclos*ure in their list of “Super Fabulous Rwanda-Related Websites.”

Happy 100th, Julia

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Photo by Drew Avery under CC license, via flickr.

Life itself is the proper binge.
— Julia Child

Today is the centennial of Julia Child’s birth.

The Julia Child rose  (appropriately butter-gold ) was bred by Tom Carruth in 2004.  It was personally chosen by Child to bear her name.  Weeks Roses introduced it to the public in 2006, and it was chosen as one of that year’s AARS winners.

The Julia Child kitchen exhibit will re-open today at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History.  It has been closed since January for a move to another part of the museum.

Vintage landscape: what a lovely idea

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A garden party. . .

Bill Cunningham’s (always) charming fashion video in today’s New York Times, about The Newport Vintage Dance Week — here — made me think of these Library of Congress photos of bygone garden parties.

President and Mrs. Coolidge at White House garden party, June 3, 1926, by National Photo Company.

Click on any thumbnail below to scroll through larger photos of a variety of garden and lawn parties.

The online National First Ladies Library describes Grace Coolidge as “bright, intelligent, witty, with a strong sense of humor.” Her Wikipedia entry says she was the most popular woman in Washington.
At the same party, Mrs. Coolidge with Prudence Prim, her white collie. The Coolidges had 4 cats, 7 birds, and 9 dogs.
Representative Edith N. Rogers and Carl Brunner at the same White House garden party (probably for disabled vets). Rep. Rogers looks quite chipper despite appearing to be in mourning for her husband, who died in 1925. The other lady (Mrs. Brunner?) is more serious and seems to have brought her bible (or phone book). All 3 photos by National Photo Company.
President Theodore Roosevelt hosted this lawn party about 1905. Photo by Underwood & Underwood.
About the same time, Alice Roosevelt attended this garden party in Japan, given by the U.S. Ambassador.
1911 lawn party on Governor’s Island, N.Y. The event was annually sponsored by the Army Relief Society, which raised money for regular army widows and orphans.
Florence Kimball and her escort being offered food at a 1908 Governor’s Island lawn party. Both G.I. photos by Bains News Service.
Garden party at the Hartsdale Train Station in the Bronx, Sept. 20, 1919. The event was “Floralia.” Photo by Bronx Parkway Commission.
“Floralia” covered 5 acres with exhibitions of flowers, vegetable, and garden sculpture.
A Fairbanks, Alaska, party c. 1918. Note the raised wooden sidewalk and the greenhouse attached to the house. Fairbanks had only been founded in 1901. Photo by National Photo Company.
A 1920 lawn fete for Near East Relief. Twin Oaks was a 30-acre estate in Cleveland Park in Washington, D.C., built in 1888 by the first President of the National Geographic Society and owned at the time of this photo by his daughter, Grace.
These girls were performing at the same fete. The house still exists and has been owned by the ROC (Taiwan) since 1947. Photo by National Photo Company.
At the same party, the Japanese flower booth. Photo by National Photo Company.
1925: The Countess Szechenyi and her daughter Sylvia appear in many LoC society event photos. The Countess was a Vanderbilt heiress, who married a Hungarian count, who was also Ambassador to the U.S. Sylvia also married a Hungarian count. She was the last member of the V. family to live at The Breakers at Newport, R.I. She died in 1998. I haven’t found the location of Mt. Alton. Photo by National Photo Company.
A tea party in “Plant Park”, which was an attraction of the Gilded Age Tampa Bay Hotel. The park and building still exist as part of the University of Tampa. There was a small zoo in the park, which may explain the posts (fence?) around the pond.
At the Mina House hotel in Cairo, Egypt, c. 1920s. Note the Great Pyramid in the upper right side.
A tea party for the Jerusalem YMCA after a tennis tournament, August 1939, by the American Colony of Jerusalem.
Garden party for the 60th Anniversary of the American Colony of Jerusalem, Sept. 25, 1941. The Colony had really disbanded by this time.
Sometimes a garden party can be for just two (or four). About 1900, photographer unknown.

Just because. . .

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I’ve been working full-time in the garden this week instead of working on new posts.

And because we’re thinking about a London vacation.  Any ideas?  I haven’t been there in about 15 years.

Photo by Kevan Davis under CC license, via flickr.

This is the grave of John Tradescant the elder (c. 1570s – 1638) and of John Tradescant the younger (1608-1662) and his young son (and two wives).  Naturalists, botanists, gardeners — they introduced American plants to the (then) wider world.

The grave is at the Garden Museum at St. Mary’s at Lambeth (London).  The epitaph by John Aubrey reads, in part,

Transplanted now themselves, sleep here & when
Angels shall with their trumpets waken men,
And fire shall purge the world, these three shall rise
And change this Garden for a Paradise.