A Yearbook
The Good Earth Garden Club of Wausau, organized on May 24, 1948, printed yearbooks for their members which noted accomplishments of the previous year, subjects and locations of their monthly meetings, and gardening tips. These were hand made booklets with typed pages stapled together inside. The first of these for Good Earth Garden Club was printed in 1949, but this yearbook from 1959 is of the earlier examples we have in our archives.
Good Earth Garden Club Activities
The yearbook lists Good Earth Garden Club’s objective as being “to carry out a program of creating greater interest in gardening, artistic use of horticultural materials, development of home grounds, promotion of civic beautification and the stimulation of interest in Conservation” (pg. 5). A myriad of projects for the prior year supporting this objective were noted in the yearbook, including contributions to the Garden Therapy Project of Mendota State Hospital, civic planting in Kelly Park on Highways 51 and 29, assisting with the annual flower show of the Wausau Garden Clubs, up-keep of the Blue Star Memorial Marker in Rothschild, sharing garden flowers in the community, and contributing to the Trees for Tomorrow Scholarship Fund. Some activities were completed in conjunction with other local garden clubs, of which there were several. This was the result of a growing interest in conservation efforts in the later half of the 20th century.
Local-level clubs were typically members of both the Garden Club of Wisconsin-Central Region and National Federation of Garden Clubs. By joining the regional club, local clubs would automatically become members of the National Federation of Garden Clubs, which gave them access to additional resources, conventions, and educational materials. Although local Marathon County clubs such as Good Earth Garden Club attended conferences and nation and state wide events, the yearbooks tended to focus on activities set in the local community.