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It is with great sadness that Norfolk Botanical Garden announces it has lost a large link to its past, an icon of its history, a woman whose hard work will not be forgotten. Ms. Edna Joyce, the last surviving planter of the original Garden has died. According to her family, Ms. Joyce passed away on Friday at Chesapeake General Hospital.
Ms. Joyce was a teenager in 1938 when she and 199 other African American women and 20 African American men were hired to clear and plant 30 acres of land around Mirror Lake to create an azalea garden. With funding from a Works Progress Administration grant, for four years the 220 original workers took on the back-breaking task of clearing trees, pulling roots, removing stumps and planting many different varieties of azaleas and other flowers.
Recently, Ms. Joyce has drawn much attention from the Norfolk community, mostly because of the efforts of Ruffner Academy’s Community Problem Solving Team (CMPS). The 6th through 10th grade students spent two years digging into Norfolk Botanical Garden’s history. CMPS members interviewed relatives of eight other WPA workers, but focused on recording Ms. Joyce’s first-hand account of the creation of the Garden. Last summer their project, “Digging into Repressed Times”, or DIRT, won top honors at the International Conference of Problem Solving in Kentucky.
Ms. Joyce’s story and the students’ dedication and passion to create an authentic product not only
led them to a first place victory, but also positively impacted our community. The team’s research helped support the nomination of Norfolk Botanical Garden to the Virginia State and National Historical Registries, prepare a presentation for Back to our Roots, an educational program for Black History month, and inspired an offshoot project, a community garden at Ruffner Academy. Their telling of Ms. Joyce’s story also paved the way for the permanent placement of a commemorative brick outside the Garden’s Education Wing in her honor. In August, Ms. Joyce and her church group came out to enjoy the Garden, and for the first time were able to see the brick that bears her name.
Last January, Ms. Joyce was featured in the Virginian-Pilot’s African American Today. In December of 2004 she came to the Garden to be photographed for the paper’s special January section. It was only the second time she had been here since the 1940’s. On that day, she toured the acreage around Mirror Lake. She was able to see the part of the Garden where, because of her hard work, hundreds of azaleas, rhododendrons and other flowers now line the pathways.
Without the efforts of Edna Joyce and the 219 other workers, our Garden would not have grown. Her hands, her strength, her sweat helped cultivate what became155 acres of pristine beauty. But to those of us who had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Joyce, she was so much more than a planter. She was a link to our living history we held in highest regard. She was respected and honored by our staff as well as our visitors. She had a smile that beamed and a laugh so sweet you couldn’t help
but hug her. Just being in her presence lifted your heart and spirit. And now that she’s passed, her memory will live on in the trees, shrubs and thousands of flowers she helped create.
Norfolk Botanical Garden is currently in the process of a design competition for an original, permanent work of art that will be placed on the historic acreage in honor of the WPA planters. The memorial is scheduled to be unveiled in 2008, in commemoration of the Garden’s 70th anniversary.
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