Nancy Murray, a former president of The Garden Club of Palm Beach, headed up the Garden Club of America (GCA) book committee, formed six years ago in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the national organization’s founding.
Their committee’s mission: to produce a commemorative GCA history book to be published in 2013, the organization’s centennial year.
Murray and the committee worked diligently to make The Garden Club of America: 100 Years of a Growing Legacy (Smithsonian Books, $29.95), written by historian William Seale, a reality.
The book has just shipped to bookstores across the country this week.
On the island, both Classic Bookshop, 310 S. County Road, and the Palm Beach Book Store, 215 Royal Poinciana Way, have copies of the GCA volume in stock.
Those of you locals who take a look at the hardcover book, shown at top, might recognize the garden image pictured on the back of the dust jacket.
It happens to be one of the eight circular planting beds, referred to as the Kaleidoscope Gardens along the Royal Poinciana Way median.
The beds were created by local landscape designer Alan Stopek of Efflorescence, Inc. and feature native and salt-tolerant plant materials.
The 2008 project, as is the case with most such landscape beautification efforts in town, was funded by The Garden Club of Palm Beach.
And the photograph, credited to The Garden Club of Palm Beach, was taken by club member Carrie Murray, who happens to be Nancy Murray’s daughter-in-law.
Nancy Murray said she did not play a role in selecting the image placed on the back cover, and that it was chosen by the book’s editor and designer.
So, no nepotism involved here folks.
Murray did say that the 125 members of The Garden Club of Palm Beach were all thrilled to see one of their projects featured in such a prominent way.
“The Garden Club of Palm Beach, founded in 1928, has a long history of involvement with the town,” she said.
Indeed, just a year after it was formed, the club commissioned and paid for a “city beautiful plan” for Palm Beach.
That interest in improving the look and feel of the town continues on to this day.
So, Palm Beach kinda scored big, considering there are 200 GCA-affiliated clubs across the country, in having an image of an island project chosen for the jacket of the national organization’s commemorative history, a once-in-a-century opportunity, one could say.
With the book now released, Murray is continuing her involvement with the executive committee of the GCA, taking on a vice presidency with the national organization in June.
She and several garden clubbers from Palm Beach also will be heading to New York that month for the dedication of the GCA’s centennial project, a $500,000 revitalization of a portion of Manhattan’s Central Park at the East 69th Street entrance along Fifth Avenue.
Though the GCA was founded in Philadelphia, Murray said that the organization’s headquarters were eventually relocated to New York City and happen to be close to the part of Central Park that is the focus of the GCA’s centennial project.
For information about the GCA, go to to gcamerica.org. For information about The Garden Club of Palm Beach, go to gardenclubpalmbeach.com.
