Sharing the Love of Gardening chronicles the seventy-five-year history of Kansas City’s Westport Garden Club (WGC). Founded as a women’s garden club in 1950, the group became a member of the prestigious Garden Club of America (GCA) in 1956. Since that time, it has evolved into an organization committed to civic improvement through educational programs and action in the areas of conservation, horticulture and the use of native plants.

With the post-World War II housing boom, the nascent WGC became involved in landscaping projects aimed at beautifying Kansas City. These efforts continued when the WGC led re-landscaping efforts after the Great Flood of 1951. Early in their club’s history, the women of the WGC learned that collaboration with other organizations allowed them to have a greater impact on the causes about which they cared. They soon began working with city governments and park departments on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas state line, including with the Linda Hall Library and Arboretum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Loose Park Garden Center.

In addition to being a thorough history of The Westport Garden Club—and the considerable influence that a small number of dedicated, educated women have had on it—Sharing the Love of Gardening is a book of stunning photography, showcasing previously unpublished images from the clubs’ archives and the original work of club member and professional photographer Marianne Kilroy.

 

Kristie C. Wolferman earned a B.A. in History from Middlebury College and an M.A. in History from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She taught middle school History and English at Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City for twenty years and at the O’Neal School in Southern Pines, North Carolina, for twelve years. She is the author of six books, including The Osage in Missouri, The Indomitable Mary Easton Sibley: Pioneer of Women’s Education, and, most recently, the second edition of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A History.