Slides, slides, and more slides

(and a new monthly newsletter topic)

Mar 26, 2021

This past week, I started to sort through E. Lowell Kammerer’s (impressive) collection of slides. There are easily thousands, so coming up with a strategy or even just deciding where to start has been pretty overwhelming! Regardless, I thought I’d share a few interesting ones I’ve come across so far.

A man wearing a grey suit standing in front of large blue/purple Delphinium that are at least a foot taller than he is. He is looking toward the flowers away from the camera.

I’ll start with this photo of my grandfather standing amongst Delphinium in his backyard garden at Riverby. The height of these flowers is incredible - he was 6 feet tall, so I’d guess the tallest of these plants was 7 or 8 feet tall!

A man standing on a rock on a small hill with larger rocky hills in the background. He is looking towards the camera but above it, with his hands at his sides and a smile on his face.

Another photo of my grandpa. There wasn’t any note on where this was taken, but I like the majestic pose in front of these rocky hills!

A white stone building with large floor to ceiling windows with trees to the right side and a large green lawn in front.

The notes on this slide indicate that it’s a photo of the Thornhill building, on the West side of the Morton Arboretum, in June of 1951.

A white stone building with a small archway door, with hedges leading up to it and a man walking down the front steps.

A man in a grey suit walking out of a white stone building and down three stone steps.

There were many slides showing Morton Arboretum buildings; these two show my grandfather walking out of the Arboretum Administration building in 1951.

Bright red leaves on a bush contained in a black pot, which sits in front of a white stone building with ivy growing up the side.

This beautiful Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus compacta) looks to be in front of the Sterling Morton Library (just my best guess, as there’s no info on the slide about where this was taken.)

Two men standing next to a tree with smooth bark. There is snow on the ground and they are wearing winter coats and gloves.

There were many boxes of slides with photos from my grandparents’ cottage in Michigan. They and several other Arboretum staff members built vacation cottages on properties adjoining each other. This one shows “Clarence Godshalk and Tony Tyznik by a large beech tree to the north side of our swamp in MI, April 1961.” According to my dad, Clarence Godshalk (Arboretum superintendent and later director) was the one who convinced his colleagues to buy property together in Michigan. Other staff members who had homes there included Walter Eickhorst (assistant curator of collections under my grandfather and later curator of cultivated plants; also my dad’s godfather), and May Watts (naturalist, artist, and writer who I wrote about back in January.)

Arboretum Through the Seasons

I’m excited to share something fascinating that I came across while sorting through old Arboretum Bulletins and Quarterlies:

The front of a pamphlet which reads "The Garden Club of Illinois presents the 16th Annual Chicago Flower Show. May 14, 15, 16, 17 1942 at Thornhill Fam."

This hefty pamphlet details the 16th Annual Chicago Flower Show, held at Thornhill Farm rather than Navy Pier due to what the pamphlet describes as “defense activities” occurring at the Pier during WWII.

There is a ton of interesting info contained in this book, but one bit I want to focus on is a 10 page spread written by my grandfather titled “Through the Seasons at the Morton Arboretum.”

This article proceeds month by month, describing flowers and trees that one can find at the Arboretum during each season. The descriptions are vivid and detailed, and over the next year, I’ll be starting each month with a newsletter covering plants to keep an eye out for during that time of year. I’ll also be making an effort to visit the Arboretum myself to seek out these trees and flowers and see what the landscapes and plantings he described look like today!

Stay tuned for the first of these issues coming at the beginning of April.

I hope you enjoyed this preview of the wealth of photos contained in (what seems like infinite) boxes of slides and getting an update on upcoming newsletters.

I’ll leave you with this beautiful photo of Daffodils (Narcissus) blooming in front of Riverby, hoping it will bring up warm thoughts of Springtime.

A small white cape cod house with green shutters with bright yellow daffodils growing in the front yard.

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