Brother Pete, You might want to contact Perry Wheelock, Cultural Resource Specialist at Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. _perry_wheelock at nps.gov_ (mailto:perry_wheelock at nps.gov) Because gardens were historical, Rock Creek Park took over running of several city Victory Gardens which had gone on for years after WWII. (Not sure when/how this came about but Perry would know.) I used to garden in one of them -- Melvin Hazen Community Garden -- and there were some very long-term gardening ladies who hearkened back to the 50s (and had taken over their plots from family and friends) so they would have lots of good stories. Perry may be able to put you in touch with a few as well as provide some helpful info. for your article. If you can't reach her, give me a holler and I'll see if a friend who still gardens there can rustle up some names. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has a big garden, modeled after WWII Victory Gardens, with all sorts of heirloom veggies. Right now, the museum is closed for renovation so I'm not sure what's going on with the garden. But they had a brochure, focused school visits on the garden, etc., so it might be worth a google search to see who was in charge and if he or she might be able to help with your questions. Finally, if you're interested, I've written a children's novel--Jackson Jones and Mission Greentop (Random House, ages 7 to 10) about a contemporary boy and his buddies trying to save their city community garden (discovered to be a WWII Victory Garden) from being bulldozed by developers (an all too-common scenario these days, alas). Jackson's garden is based on the Melvin Hazen garden mentioned above and there's a cranky old guy in it who gardened there as a boy in WWII. Do let me know if you'd like to chat about it. Your article sounds interesting. Where will you publish it? I'd love a chance to read it. For Fred, Your car sounds wonderful! It reminds me of the adored vehicle of my childhood--only our car smelled not of coffee but of fish since my dad took us fishing a lot. Don said it best, I think-- you're a green and earthy guy! Throw some rakes and shovels in the back and let the Brits park their spats and toppers amongst your spades and "go green" down the street. Mary Quattlebaum Children's Author, Instructor, Reviewer MQuattle at aol.com www.maryquattlebaum.com <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20070228/6000a058/attachment.html
