History

After WWII people in and around Hudson belonged to a garden club. Who started it? When was it started? And who were the members? These are details that we are trying to discover. Some information that has been told to us, or found in meeting minutes, newspaper articles, etc. are:

Once a week the original club members brought freshly cut flowers to the lawn of Dorothy Shepherd. It was Dorothy that drove them into the veterans at St Anne de Bellevue Hospital.

Club Name: the original name was: The Lake of Two Mountains Garden Club. The name was changed to Hudson Garden Club at the October 6, 1970, general meeting.
Root Sale: Popularity ruined the novel concept of the sale, which was: all donations were placed in the middle of the park at St. Jean and Cameron. Buyers stood behind a rope. At the hour of 10 a.m. a bell was rung and the rope dropped and there was a mad scramble for the roots. By 10:02 the sale was over. Cost: 25¢, then up to 50¢. The original sale was beside the town hall and the cost was 10¢. One club member was very angry when the cost went up to 25¢. Does anyone know when the sales took place beside the town hall? - when did the sale move to the corner of St. Jean and Cameron? - when did the sale move to its current location, Finnigan's?
Tours: Pheobe Hyde (owner of Greenwood) had taken her mother and her friends to see gardens and wanted the club to continue so that people could see how gardeners accentuated or camouflaged their property.
Parties: My first was a Cecile Nelson's in-law's when he was President. The only rainy one although we did see some of the garden. This was the first one of cocktails and sandwiches. Up to this time, they had been potluck suppers. Under Pheobe's reign we had a cocktail party between the 6:20 train and dinner at Whitlock or Yacht Club. As years went by, we switched to a supper but after a few years the Club had grown to about 100 and cost of hard liquor had skyrocketed and we switched to a wine and cheese party.
Meetings: In the 70's meetings were May to September. In the 80's Walter Foster petitioned and ''pleaded'' to have more meetings, so we started in March or April. I don't remember when we started Christmas wreath meeting. Does anyone know when the wreath making party was started?

From Hudson Gazette archives: 1964 the club has offered to provide six flowering (Almney) crab apple trees to each municipality (Hudson, Hudson Heights, Como). They (18 trees) were planted in 1964 so that they would be in their full flowering in 1967 (Centennial year). Where were these trees planted? Colonel Ellwood was President of the club in 1964.

Please submit any details you may have to : the Hudson Garden Club, Box 573, Hudson QC J0P 1H0; or phone 450-458-8851(voice mail) ; or email hudsongardenclub@gmail.com;
or even use the 'Contact us' link in the left pane of this page.