Kay's Garden (Part 1): The Lily Edition

I've been popping up like a weed since May at this fine old house in northeast Chariton where my friends Kay and Rex live, taking photos of the flowers blooming in Kay's garden. 

Kay also is chair of the grounds committee and chief gardener at the museum, so you can see her handiwork there, too --- but this is the mother ship.

The garden here is not notable because of its size --- a large city lot. It's the variety that makes it so interesting, and beautiful. 

With the exception of ground covers and a few bedding plants, there are few duplicates. This means that around the corner and just beyond that big hosta there's always something different to admire.

I thought at first that I'd start at mid-spring and work forward with these photos, but this is lily season --- both true lilies and day lilies are at their peak --- so I'll start here.

The first gardener on this spot --- long before the big house appeared --- was named Martha --- Martha Waynick.

Her husband, Dupre William Waynick, always known as "D.W.," was a physician and among the earliest settlers to arrive in Lucas County. D.W. and his brother, Wyatt, also a physician, arrived at William McDermott's "Ireland" out in Cedar Township in company with the James Roland family during May of 1848. The Waynicks were born in North Carolina, but had resettled as youngsters with their parents in Indiana.

After helping the Rolands build their cabin southeast of Ireland, the Waynick brothers staked their own claim just inside Monroe County to the east and overwintered there. In the spring of 1849, Wyatt came on to Chariton Point, becoming the first physician to practice here.

D.W. headed back east where he married Martha Clark during April of 1849. They then returned to western Monroe County where they lived until the fall of 1855 when they joined his brothers, by this time Wyatt, Iverson and David, in Chariton.

D.W. and Martha settled down here, in a cabin located near what now is the intersection of Auburn Avenue and North 5th Street --- then open country some distance beyond the straggling village of Chariton to the southwest.

The Waynicks raised a family of 12 children here --- so it seems likely most gardening efforts were devoted to producing edibles. However, nearly all of our pioneer grandmothers had flowers, too, so there's no reason to think Martha would have been an exception.

D.W. Waynick died here at age 58 during 1880, but Martha continued to live on this corner in a frame house that had replaced the original cabin for 17 more years, until 1897.