Taste of Heritage Gardens honors late organizer with 25th anniversary celebration

IOWA CITY — After coming back from a two-year hiatus, the 25th anniversary of Taste of Heritage Garden will honor the late founding member who was instrumental to the event’s success.

Betty Kelly, who organized efforts to establish historically-modeled gardens in plum grove and the Taste of Heritage Garden dinners, died March 30 at age 94. As her fellow Johnson County Master Gardeners celebrate 40 years of service in Johnson County, this year’s event will pay special tribute through her recipes from The Taste cookbook and a new bench plaque to be dedicated by her family.

The dinner, for a donation of $5 per person, benefits the gardens, horticulture scholarships at Kirkwood Community College, where Kelly used to teach, and 4-H awards.

For years, Kelly negotiated with the State Historical Society of Iowa, the owner of Plum Grove, for permission to plant a heritage garden as the state of Iowa celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1995. Over 15 years from 1995 to 2010, she helped establish a vegetable garden, heirloom flower garden, wildflower garden and rose garden using historical research to identify what people ate when Plum Grove was established and how they would have tended the garden.

“The garden was another opportunity to inform the public about the state’s history, agriculture and its citizens,” Kelly said before her death.

Plum Grove was built by Iowa’s first governor and his wife, Robert and Friendly Lucas, in 1844 — two years before Iowa was admitted to the Union. In its 25 years under the Johnson County Master Gardeners’ care, it has received the Iowa State Service Award, the National Smithsonian Garden Award and an Irving Weber Award for providing a glimpse into history.

The gardens, laid out in typical 1850s fashion, planted rows of vegetables in north-south directions in raised garden beds.

“History being important to her as a teacher, she decided to take it upon herself that Plum Grove was represented in (the Sesquicentennial celebration of Iowa,)” said Carolyn Murphy, a Johnson County Master Gardener. “When she set her mind to do something, it happened.”

Murphy, a mentee of Kelly, said she will remember Kelly for her perseverance and articulate research to preserve the history of Iowa.

“The past really needs to be remembered, and we need to celebrate it,” Murphy said. “Betty wanted to share what we were doing at Plum Grove."

“She never did anything half way,” said Linda Schreiber, another fellow Master Gardener. “She saw this as a good opportunity to promote Master Gardeners and do something beneficial.”

This year’s menu includes a variety of items that Friendly Lucas might have grown and served in the mid-1800s, including favorites from past years’ plum dishes:

The Old Post Office Brass Band will perform, as they have for many years.

“Betty was a historian by all means,” said Murphy. “We’re going to honor Betty and keep her memory alive as long as we can.”

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