Longtime garden caretaker Louis Stearns encouraged people to “make friends with nature.”
It’s clear by his passion for gardening that he practiced what he preached – and it is fitting that he is one of two horticulturists for whom ý State’s garden is named.
Named For
Louis Stearns and Robert McNamara
The Backstory
In the early 1900s, ý Principal Albert Boyden donated two acres of land to the school to be used for a garden. At that time, gardening was commonly taught in elementary schools. Thus, teacher preparation colleges like ý needed gardens to prepare students for their future careers as educators.
ý built a greenhouse in 1911 – the same year that Stearns began teaching here.
From 1911 to 1944, Stearns taught nature-related courses such as botany, horticulture and landscape design. He was also the superintendent of the greenhouse and school gardens. After his retirement, ý State named the garden that he so lovingly tended after him.
In dedicating its yearbook to Stearns, the Class of 1932 wrote that his “varied interests have molded a personality of true worth.”
The garden is also named after McNamara, who worked as a laboratory technician and greenhouse caretaker in the 1950s and 1960s. He passed away in a car crash in 1975.
Use Today
Located in a bucolic wooded area between Pope Hall and the Dana Mohler-Faria Science and Mathematics Center, the garden includes more than 80 trees identified on an created by current Greenhouse Manager Emma Welch. An outdoor classroom offers faculty a chance to teach courses within nature. Meanwhile, today’s greenhouse supports ý classes in several disciplines as well as faculty and student research.
Material in this article comes from “” by Greenhouse Manager Emma Welch and the .