McMinnville Garden Club plans yearbook programs
Martha Gillespie, president, led the attendees in reading the Club Collect in unison before all reports were given. Several articles and photographs were collected for the scrapbook.
McMinnville Garden Club was featured in the Winter, 2002 Volunteer Gardener regarding the celebration of the club’s 75th-year of gardening. Several pictures of the luncheon at Historic Falcon Manor were included in the published display.
Helen Elkins presented the program entitled “In the Beginning” (Nature). Ancient legends of saints and holy men prove a close relation of nature and religion. Mrs. Elkins used ancient weddings and courtship customs and flowers in her talk.
The delicate purity and fragrance of orange blossoms have won for them an honored role of wedding flowers. Moslem brides used to wear orange blossoms as a sign of fecundity. Because of the early association, years later, the flower was introduced by dressmakers as a fashionable and appropriate flower for brides.
In England, rosemary was intertwined in the wreath worn by the bride at the altar. The flowers, although sweetly scented itself, was first dipped in perfumed water. Hazel was associated with weddings in Rome and the Greeks also used hazel and hawthorn blossoms as symbols of the flowering future the couple hoped to enjoy.
Mrs. Elkins said flowers were also used to cover wedding presents in Tripoli. The ancient Greeks were very fond of lilies, and in their wedding ceremonies the priest places wreaths of lilies and ears of corn on the heads of the bride and groom as symbols of purity and abundance.
Judging for the day was as follows:
Exhibit: “In the Woods” creative design using wood or driftwood and plant material – Hilda Cantrell, blue; Martha Gillespie, red; Sandra Panter, yellow.
Following adjournment, members remained at the caf? for lunch. Later Mrs. Cantrell and Mrs. Gillespie complicated the President’s Report for 2002 to submit to the District II Director of the Tennessee Federation of Garden Clubs.