Visited on June 29, 2013.
“The Lord God planted a garden in the first white day of the world; And placed there an angel warden, In a a garment of light unfurled. So near to the peace of heaven, The hawk might nest with the wren; For there in the cool of the even, God walked with the first of men. And I dream that these garden closes. With their shade and sun-flecked sod, and their lilies and bowers of roses were laid by the hand of God. The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the bird for mirth, One is nearer God’s Heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.”
(“God’s Garden” by Dorothy Frances Gurney, poet)
A trip to Illinois to visit my family and friends in the scenic Fox River Valley area provided me the opportunity to visit a garden at The Holmstad, a retirement community set on 38 parkland acres in Batavia, Illinois where my sister Marcy is employed. The Holmstad is associated with the Evangelical Covenant Church, which has had a tradition since it’s founding in Chicago in 1886 by Swedish immigrants, to provide social services to communities and their residents. Today the Covenant Retirement Community provides continuing care needs for senior citizens from independent living to long-term care services. My visit found a ministry other than for physical needs taking place daily at The Holmstad. A ministry through gardening to open minds and hearts had been planted in a community garden on the grounds of The Holmstad.
My first visit to the garden was brief as I was headed to my mother’s house in Geneva, after flying into Chicago from Norfolk, Virginia. Marcy introduced me to Clarice Schultz and her gardening partner Jamie Weaver and indicated that we had common garden interests. I told Clarice that gardening was my “bliss time.” She understood that. A subsequent visit with Clarice at her Holmstad cottage gave me insight into the community garden infused with spirit that transcends just growing fresh vegetables and ornamental plants.
The Holmstad opened its doors for independent living for senior citizens in 1975. Many of these first residents had been farmers in the fertile farmland of the Fox River Valley area. They wanted to continue with gardening so requested the administration to provide space for a community vegetable garden. Two large areas were provided with plots that could be subdivided depending on the individual gardener’s needs. Over time additional duplexes were constructed on the campus, which removed a large portion of the garden space. Eventually the population changed due to age, with the majority of the incoming senior citizens preferring ornamental gardening since they had been familiar with that from suburban living. The community vegetable garden has continued though with a ministry to provide fresh produce to the Holmstad residents and to the Batavia community for people in need.
“To everything there is a season…a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted…and also that every man should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good…and to rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God. He hath made everything beautiful in his time.”
(Ecclesiastes 2:24 & 3:1,2,11,)
At dawn on an early spring day Bob Dahlstrom, a Batavia resident and retired mailman, will drive his vintage tractor to The Holmstad, traversing the Batavia Fabyan Parkway Bridge spanning the Fox River, before morning traffic.
Since a roto-tiller is not conducive to gardeners with artificial knees or hips, he provides the heavy equipment to till the vegetable garden in the spring. At the end of the growing season in the fall he plows up the remains of the garden and spreads collected compost over the beds. With ground mulch, grass clippings, woodchips and compost incorporated into the earth, over time good soil has been established in all the garden beds.
The Holmstad gardeners can be anxious for spring warmth after months of Illinois winter. Eager to garden with the first days of sunshine and melted snow that lulls false hope vegetable seeds are often planted prematurely. Not daunted by a late winter setback new seeds are replanted. By late June the garden is filled by the bright colors of popular annuals, marigolds, zinnia, petunia and cosmos planted as borders around the beds of hardy and by then well established vegetable plants.
By mid-summer carrots and onions are pulled out of the warm soil. Vines of summer squash, fall pumpkins and ornamental gourds compete for space with purple beets, peppers, asparagus, cabbage, lettuce and, rhubarb. Ripe red tomatoes spill out of tall wire cages. Golden towering sunflowers are interspaced throughout the beds, their seeds nourishment for birds. Thorny raspberry bushes are at the gardens edge.
With an over abundance of vegetables for the gardener and his or her family, the Garden Market is set up each Tuesday during the harvest season to share the fresh excess produce with the Holmstad residents. Corn on the cob (Illinois soil grows the best), green peppers, cucumbers, beets, kale, broccoli, varieties of summer squash, yellow and green zucchini, and red tomatoes ripe for instant consumption, are a few of the offerings for sale from the garden.
Cut flowers from the garden such as phlox, gladiolus, sunflower, zinnia, and daisies, are used for floral bouquets and included on the tables for purchase. Baskets of produce are donated to the Batavia Food Pantry. The Holmstad Garden Club uses the money from the market sales for buying garden supplies and maintaining the community garden shed. Clarice has been able to obtain plants for the garden through donations from people at her church and other gardeners that may be downsizing or having to retire from gardening. Holmstad vegetable growers share the garden space when additional plots are available with other gardeners in the Fox Valley area. This has provided a welcome addition of younger people working in the garden.
A highlight and compliment for the Holmstad Garden Club in June 2011, was inclusion in a bi-annual garden walk of beautiful gardens in the local area. The Batavia Plain Dirt Gardeners, an organization that encourages gardening and promotes worthwhile gardening projects in the Batavia area, sponsored this event. Over four hundred people visited the Holmstad Garden while musicians strolled the footpaths playing their instruments. Formal tea and deserts were served in the Holmstad Auditorium for the garden guests.
Gardens are not static. Gardens are in transition for many reasons. Like the people or person who attends to the care of a garden, the garden matures and evolves shaped by the personality and the life experiences of the creator. In turn a garden reciprocates providing substance to the caretakers soul. Under Clarice’s guidance the garden club members have designed a landscape garden that provides a place for individuals to rejuvenate the soul through rest and meditation.
When I met Clarice she had been living at The Holmstad for fourteen years and an active participate in the garden club since that time. Gardening was imprinted on her as “child labor,” as she now calls it, while growing up on a dairy farm in northern Wisconsin with eight siblings. Her farm chores at the age of five included milking cows in the evening. The milk was sold for the making of M & M candies and cheese. As a nine year old she was responsible for 600 egg laying chickens whose eggs were sold to restaurants, since they would pay more for the dozens. She recalled the farm dog that kept away predators and raptors from the small chickens.
Acres of vegetables were planted alternating with rows of dahlias. Green beans, peas and strawberries were sold as money crops to canning factories. From a fruit orchard in the garden apple butter was made. Annually 300 hundred quarts each of tomatoes and apple butter were canned. For the family meat was provided with hunting plus the farms cows and pigs. Now in Clarice’s memory it was a small family farm before the era of mechanized factory farms, genetically modified dairy cows and minimum hourly wageworkers.
As an adult living in Plainfield, Illinois, Clarice continued to garden in a small suburban style with flowers, bushes, trees and a few vegetables, creating a nice spot for her children as they were growing up. After her children left home she focused on gardens that would benefit other people. She found satisfaction and recognition in her work with a public garden. Clarice’s life changed radically in August of 1990 when a deadly tornado ripped through Plainfield. She lost her home, nearly her life, and soon after separated from her husband and moved away from Illinois for a period of time. Clarice still continued to garden while living in Florida and then Houston.
Clarice worked as a nurse for thirty years including hospice care. She has written books concerning the spiritual and physical healing of patients. She currently serves as a Unity Prayer Chaplain. She traces her compassion from her farm days when she had the responsibility to care for the dairy cows with individually fed diets as well as the breeding and raising of the farm cows. She has written a book on “Death and Dying, Grief and Grieving,” a subject which she is intimately familiar with, having lost her son while he was in the line of duty as a member of the Kansas City Police Department.
Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden…and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29
Aware that the life changes that would face others in her community as they grow older; illness, loss of a loved one or watching others suffer, Clarice said that the spiritual life can become a challenge. She began the creation of a therapeutic garden, a garden that would calm the mind through meditation or quiet reflection. The garden would also be designed to accommodate physical mobility needs and provide a comfortable place for social interactions.
With Clarice’s background of healing the physical body as well as the spirit, her ministry to the 600 plus residents of The Holmstad took hold in the development of a therapeutic perennial garden in 2008. The Garden Club set aside front plots with hard 5-foot wide paths so that those using walkers or wheel chairs could easily reach the gazebo where they could rest comfortably, watch the birds at the feeders and listen to the trickle of water from a nearby garden fountain. In the summer the gazebo trellis is covered with climbing vines of red roses, trumpet vines and royal purple clematis that provide additional shade.
The Holmstad Garden Club considers the gazebo and the surrounding perennial and herb garden their legacy and gift to the residents and their guests who can take walks through the open garden while enjoying communion with nature. They garden club has named it, “Your Destination Walk,” encouraging daily visits to “receive your vitamin D,” and observe the garden as it changes with new growth. Jim Weiss and his beautiful blue border collie named Lady, walk their “destination walk” morning and evening past the garden.
An invitation from the Holmstad Garden Club –
“Come apart with me for awhile and I will give you rest.”
“It is a place of peace whereby they can come, rest awhile, visit, commune with nature, listen to the birds, feel the breeze, bask in the outdoor air, smell the fresh smells of earth.
They can snip a dead bud or two, pull an errant weed, or sprinkle a thirsty plant … it is a place to see sunrises and sunsets. It provides a place to enjoy God’s painting of clouds and trees above the gardens. It is a Place to Pray; a Garden of Peace.”
Photo credits: Deborah McMillin and Marcy Burtch
Additional photos contributed by the archive collection of Clarice Schultz, Jamie Weaver & Chuck Davis.