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In January 1930, a small group of visionary women from Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights, Ohio met to organize a garden club. They decided on a mission to beautify the Shaker Lakes region around Hampton Lake, later known as Horseshoe Lake, with flowering trees and turn the area into a spring vision of blossoming cherry trees similar to Washington DC's Tidal Basin.
Armed with youthful enthusiasm and borrowed money, they commissioned a professional to plan and do the heavy digging. That first spring, they planted 50 bare root trees and kept them alive with water they carried up from the lake in buckets. In ten years, 280 trees had been planted and tenderly cared for, though many succumbed to winter cold or summer grassfires.
Programs and monthly luncheon meetings began that first year, as did flower show competitions. Club participants won awards at early Public Auditorium flower shows. To raise money for new trees and a tenth anniversary stone marker, they compiled a cookbook of members’ recipes, Soup's On. During World War II, many members volunteered at the VA hospital. Backyard gardens became Victory Gardens, with spinach among the roses and beans climbing beside the clematis. After World War II, traditional club activities resumed.
In 1964 the Cuyahoga County Highway Engineer announced plans to build an eight-lane freeway connecting downtown Cleveland to I-271. If built, it would have bisected Shaker and Cleveland Heights and destroyed or devalued numerous properties along with much of the beautiful Shaker Lakes Parklands. This proposed freeway sparked strong responses from the community, especially from the many garden clubs located on the east side of Cleveland. As a result, more than 30 garden clubs came together and created the Park Conservation Committee under the leadership of several Village Garden Club members. Numerous community organizations also joined to form an amazing grassroots organization, a formidable force that battled the Clark Freeway proposal throughout the 1960s.
Today the freeway threat is gone and within the parklands sits the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, just to the east of Lower Lake. The Nature Center was named a National Environmental Education Landmark in 1971, and later a registered National Historic Site. In 2017 the Shaker Parklands obtained an Ohio Historical Marker, located at the west end of our grove. The Village Garden Club obtained an Ohio Historic Marker in 2022 to commemorate our ongoing efforts at the Cherry Tree Grove at Horseshoe Lake Park.
The Village Garden Club’s mission remains steadfast: we are dedicated to planting and maintaining the flowering grove at Horseshoe Lake, enhancing knowledge of horticulture and the environment, fostering interest and participation in civic projects that beautify and protect the environment, preserving our heritage, and making lasting friendships.
Our archives can be accessed at the Shaker Heights Public Library’s reference department by appointment with the Local History librarian. Additionally, an extensive file of our club’s history is available on the Shaker Historical Society’s website https://sites.google.com/shakerhistory.org/it-takes-a-village.
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