Flowers are Blooming!

You can take a family photo just like these girls from the 1950s.

Ladies enjoying the roses at Elizabeth Park, circa 1910

Summer is right around the corner – the weather is getting warmer, the grass has turned a brighter green, and flowers are popping up in gardens all over the state! Perhaps one of the most amazing Connecticut gardens to view at this time of year is the Rose Garden at Elizabeth Park (Hartford, CT). The garden was created in 1904 by Theodore Wirth and spans just over 2 acres of land, filled with approximately 800 different varieties of roses. 

A Glimpse of Hellen Keller in Her Garden

Nothing is more ephemeral than a garden, unless it’s a person. Gardens change from season to season and most often die with their creators, leaving nothing but memories.  Photography has the magical ability to bring back lost gardens and people long dead.  Helen Keller had a garden full of fragrant flowers at her home, Arcan Ridge, in Easton, Connecticut, where she lived for more than thirty years following the death of her companion and teacher, Annie Sullivan. Deaf and blind, Keller was able to pursue an active career as a writer and humanitarian. In this photograph by Rosalie Thorne McKenna, which was given to CHS in 2011 by the Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation, we can see how Keller, who died at Arcan Ridge on June 1, 1968, was able to experience and appreciate nature through the fragrance of the flowers with which she surrounded herself. To find out more, go to YourPublicMedia.