Evening star., 1937-12-12
d. C.. Womar, Makes AvOcati0n
Of Gardening Successful Career
Mrs. Lillian, Wright Smith
NO,U Holds Position
With University.
BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS.

smith OF this city, who Is about to
embark on a three months Journey
to many famous Old World gardens.
Today as the gardener for the
George Washington University and
the garden specialist and consultant
of a numerous clientele of owners OF
gardens, she says she is "supremely
happy" in making all of her own
gardening dreams come true in
"other folks gardens"
Modestly refusing to ascribe her
present busy and successful work to
any other virtue than that of neces-
sity and sturdy determination to
have the pet" interest of her life
become the tool in her hands helpful
in earning her livelihood, she smiling
ly explained, like Topsy, lust
grew into it by force of circumstances. ii
Her evolution from childhood in
the Deep South to the woman happ,
and successful in a work which now
includes the garden management OF
several Virginia and Maryland estates
and the giving of numerous practical
lectures on seasonal planting and
garden making is an example of a
career that began after she had mar
ried, reared daughter and been
widowed
Home in New Orleans.
Through Mrs Smiths eyes you
see a New Orleans born-and- bred
little girl living in an old square
jasmine-mantled house, with its al
most lacelike black wrought-iror
balcony on Prytannia street. Sur
rounding it was an ancient garden
plot, where tea roses and heliotrope
mingled, with high pomegranate
hedge encompassing their Towering
loneliness.
Against the finished perfection OF
it, diminutive modern rebelled with
all the vigor of a dynamic soul, be-
cause of the gentle but firm negatpn
with which her mother, counselled
by a French grandmother, met the
lnslstent requests that in this tranquil
midst she might have a garden of
her own where she could plant what
she liked.
Then came a day when, eluding her
family and their servants, she expert
mented with the blissful execution of
her ideas on the subject and achieved
with devastating thoroughness an ir-
regular cash in the erstwhile formality
that was not unlike a gaping wound
over the storm of horror which
broke at the wilful desecration this
child has wrought" and the scrub
bing almost amounting to securing
which was necessary to disengage from
her the vestiges of Mother Earth, Mrs.
Smith feels kindly curtain had best
be drawn
Father Was Understanding.
Her father, she added, despite his
New England heritage of austerity,
was the understanding member of my
family, who not only saved me from
punishment despite his preachment
on permission" but brought trium-
phant healing to my soul by refusing
to let 1.-The damage" be repaired, and
purchasing for me two large packages
of the seeds of my choice. These
were four o'clocks of violently dis
cordant hues. Then to fill my cup of
happiness to its full. my father gravely
gave implicit directions to our elderly
darky gardener, who was torn between
chagrin at by vandalism and SYM
pathy for me because of my mothers
displeasure, that he was to stand by
and assist my further gardening
operations whenever 1 so requested"
Today this one-time rebellious de
spoiler" of her familys garden is with
reverent care restoring the gardens
of old estates, as well as turning mere
ocket-handkerchief plots in city
yards into satisfying gardens.
This early love o. expression
through the medium of making gar
den became sort of golden thread
motivating the use of her leisure time
and current reading all her life.
After her marriage Mrs. Smith, as
a resident of this vicinity and men,
Der of the Twentieth Century Club
of Washington, D. c., became the pro-
ponent with Mrs. Eugene Stevens of
the Literature Section of this club as
it now exists
Responsible for Garden Section.
Mrs. Smith was also responsible for
the Inauguration of its Garden Sec
ton. 1t was under her motivation
that the terrariuns, which have given
the inmates of various hospitals and
homes for the aged and infrm, were
as the Yuletide projects of
this section.
Mrs. Smith was chairman, too, of
the Garden Section of the Twentieth
Century Club when it sponsored and
created an herb garden for the Home
Economics Department of the George
Washington University in the rear of
one of the old houses on G street
which the university is using for class
room purposes.
during the course of one of her
conferences with University President
Cioyd H. Marvin concerning the ex-
ecution of this project, DR.. Marvin
asked Mrs. Smith if she had ever con-
sidered specializing along the line of
her garden interests and handed her
plan of suggested intensive courses
IN general landscaping and horticul-
ture which he thought might further
such course should she ever care to
follow it,
This course of study of DR.. Mar
vln'S,' Mrs. Smith said, tremendously
intrigued me, and I would bring it
forth from my desk at home to read it
over from time to time, but ALWAYS
with the thought concerning it that
here was something that would have
been of absorbing interest to me before
my marriage and the centering of NV
interests in a happy marriage and
the rearing of my family"
During her husbands subsequent
illness and long invalidism before
his death, it lay forgotten.
Forced to Find Work.
Faced with earning living in mid
die life, DR.. Marvin's plan recurred
to her with increasing frequency
Therefore. lnOn a wape-earnino ho c;c