On June 6, at the Grand View Golf Club, the Stoop n’ Bend Garden Club celebrated 75 years. On this beautiful afternoon, President Agnes Curry welcomed the group, made presentations to outstanding members Harriet Thomas and Jacqueline Dorsey, who is a descendant of Charles Waters, one of the Stoop n’ Bend founders, while Lynne Hayes-Freeland (KDKA-TV) shared memories of her late mother’s garden. Her mother was also a member of Stoop n’ Bend Garden Club.
Hayes-Freeland said she likes to promote the idea of gardening and is glad she was exposed to working in the yard. As a result, she now encourages her son to do some gardening at his home in Atlanta. She said, “after all you are a descendent of the Stoop n’ Bend Garden Club.”
Sam Black of the John Heinz History Center was the guest speaker and shared that slaves depended on botanical knowledge for survival and as Blacks began to show an increase in major urban cities in the 1950s they continued to have gardens. The program also included a horticulture presentation by Karen Yee. This presentation explained the placement of plants in centerpieces and arrangements, and how you can incorporate outdoor plants in to indoor arrangements.
The Stoop n’ Bend Garden Club was organized on July 20, 1940 and founded by Mrs. Charles J. Waters Jr. at the Phipps Garden Center formerly the Pittsburgh Civic Garden Center in Pittsburgh. Rodney Pryor, the husband of one of the members, honored the group by naming the club. He said whenever his wife worked in her garden she was always stooping and bending over her plants.
Stoop n’ Bend, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, and the fathers and children of Lincoln Elementary School sponsor the garden located at Frankstown and Lincoln Avenues.
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