By Pauline Masson –
For thirty years, Pacific had a group of women who worked behind the scenes to make the city a better place to live – prettier, more welcoming and better managed.
They worked – albeit stubbornly – without pay or public acclaim.
The Pacific Garden Club took a page from the national Federation of Women’s Clubs to learn how to gain public awareness, generate funding for favorite projects, and enlist the help of school children to sway elected officials.
They were not even identified by their first names.
In 1957, when this little saga began, you didn’t read that Laura Noonan and Mary Hoven were digging up the dirt in the little patch of weeds at Thornton Road and Hwy 66.
In scores of newspaper articles they were identified as Mrs. Garland “Ick” Noonan, Mrs. Dave Hoven.
When Virginia “Ginny” Dailey, former known in local news as Mrs. Joseph Dailey, reached her declining year and moved into Pacific Care Center, she took with her one personal item to be kept in her room – the neatly typed, twelve-page History of the Garden Club of Pacific.
Wife of the founder of the first industrial park and Pacific Care Center, and mother of Tom Dailey who manages the flagship McHugh-Dailey building, Ginny was enthusiastic about the garden club and its efforts to maintain city parks, teach children and adults the benefits of cultivating flowers a and protecting the city’s songbirds. She was a fanatic researcher who spent untold hours traceing the ownership and occupancy of Pacific’s historic landmarks. She knew everyone and was always willing to share what she knew and suggest who could help with plans for a new project.
Eleanor Hirth, best known as the picture show lady, wife of Henry K. Hirth, second generation owner/operator of the Royal Theater, was a popular member of the Garden Club. For 20 years she chaired the Pacific Red Cross blood drive. Her obituary noted that she was instrumental in starting kindergarten in Pacific schools. In 1965 the Pacific Jayces named her its Outstanding Young Woman. And in 1969 she was in charge of the breakfast at the Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri Convention at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis. Behind the scenes she was working every week of her life to educate and enhance the lives of severely handicapped youngsters in Franklin County.
Mary Hoven who worked for the Meramec Valley RIII School District and the Scenic Regional Library, was widely known as the mother of Pacific Parks. As president of the City Park Board she attended every meeting of the board of aldermen (BOA) where she lobbied for more parking space in the parks, new children’s playground equipment, improved tennis courts and better amenities at the city swimming pool. She was also a member of the Queen’s Daughters, the Pacific Lions, the Pacific Eagles, the Pacific Jaycees Auxiliary and St Bridget’s Church. She was a Cub Scout Den mother; a volunteer for The Society of St Vincent De Paul; and she was a founding member of the Pacific Sports Booster Club, at Pacific High School.
Laura Noonan, wife and business partner of Garland “Ick” Noonan was a insurance agent, who purchased the city’s first insurance agency Close Insurance from Blanch Pletcher, which they later sold to Joe Bosse and is now the N in NEC Insurance Company. She was a realtor, and real estate appraiser. She and her husband developed the Hawthorne subdivision. She was a constant member of the powerful Pacific Garden Club and one of the stylishly dressed ladies who were often seen on her knees digging in park flower beds. She was one of five garden club members who took the full four-year landscape and design course offered in Webster Groves. She used her voice to promote a love of gardens to elementary school students, lobbied for every garden club project, and every educational program that advanced city beautification.
The Pacific Garden Club shaped Pacific culture in the 1950s and 60s, launching the first Pacific library, convincing the Frisco Railroad to clean up its crumbling depot, providing the labor to landscape three small city parks, winning national recognition for a local “Clean Up, Paint Up, Fix Up” campaign, and persuading the City of Pacific to create a planning and zoning board to clarify what could be built where.
These ladies adopted a constitution and by-laws, elected officers, held regular meetings, and enlisted their club in the Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri.
While keeping up with daily jobs, they went about the business of turning vacant lots into gardens, lobbied for civic progress, and through it all, they did their own digging. They carried their baskets of seeds, bedding plants, and hand trowels in one hand, shovel and rake in the other to their latest gardening spot and began the backbreaking work of beautifying the city. After they turned the first little plot of ground at Thornton street and Hwy 66 into a small park they focused their attention on a troubling eyesore downtown.
They wanted something done about the unsightly, dirty depot that the Missouri Pacific and Frisco railroads had formerly shared, but at that time was owned and operated by the Frisco.
The ladies made an appointment, put on their Sunday dresses and high heels, and visited the Union Pacific Railroad officials in downtown St. Louis. There is no record of what the ladies said. But after that meeting the railroad sent a delegation to Pacific to inspect the depot, and in short order, the depot building was tuck pointed and painted.
As the local committee for Union Electric Planned Progress Program the garden club launched a “paint it up, fix it up,” campaign with a public relations program that rivaled the World War II effort to end polio. School children were invited to enter contests designing posters and litter bags, which were judged for prizes awarded by the Garden Club. Businesses advertised “specials” on fix-up materials and supplies and bought full-page newspaper ads promoting the clean-up campaign.
The City father were so taken by the spiffy look of the place, and the good spirits with which everyone participated, they established a committee to work with the fire marshal to write a new safety ordinance that evolved into the city’s first building code. The ladies of the club decided to call for more civic improvements. Pacific needed zoning. They petitioned the board of aldermen and pressed for action. They wanted a Planning & Zoning Board and were so thorough in their petition that they submitted a list of citizens to serve on the board. A seven-member board was appointed. One club member learned that cities could get grants to cover two-thirds of the cost of city planning projects. The city applied for the grant and in the spring of 1968 it was awarded.
