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- OUR GARDEN 1941-1942 [Cover Title - Manuscript Journal on Gardening]
OUR GARDEN 1941-1942 [Cover Title - Manuscript Journal on Gardening]
OUR GARDEN 1941-1942 [Cover Title - Manuscript Journal on Gardening]
A manuscript gardening journal kept by Frank A. Gause (1872-1956) during about 1941-1942. Gause, a 1904 graduate of Indiana University, retired from a career as a school superintendent in various locations, including the Panama Canal Zone, and relocated to Elkhart, Indiana in about 1935 to live near and work with his son, Richard, proprietor of City Roofing and Coal Company on North Main Street.
His gardens were covered in a September 2, 1942 feature story in THE ELKHART TRUTH daily newspaper which noted Gause claimed a portion of the company’s outdoor coal storage yards to begin planting: “He had 40 yards of muck and 7 or 8 yards of marl hauled in to start the garden.” The story focuses chiefly on his vegetable growing (doting on tomatoes as large as 2 ½ lbs. each) and further descriptions in the present journal note prolific flower cultivation and ambitious design plans, planting maps, etc.., conjuring what must have been an exceptional sight: a thriving and meticulously-tended garden in the midst of coal piles and roofing materials.
The journal opens with a series of four numbered “observations,” including the following on flowers:
"Flowers respond to all our better moods - never to our courser. How they attune themselves to our joys and sorrows! And how they mock our ugly impulses! If I am pensive, so are they ; if exuberant, so are they ; if grieved or hurt, they seem to know, and sorter come close to me and sympathize. When winter comes to take them from me something within me, too, seems to sink with the earth and , like the perennial, await the call of summer, "Arise and live!"" [sic all]
It continues with dedicated entries dated between January-April 1941, serving as an outlet for his intense, often philosophical thoughts and plans on gardening. Several hand-drawn planting bed maps and layouts as well as charts on seed prices and varieties, planting schedules, etc… illustrate the journal and what appears to be a chapter draft for an in-progress or conceptual gardening-related book can be found on pp. 151.
Gause was an accomplished author who published a contemporary history of Panama in 1912 titled, THE STORY OF PANAMA: The New Route to India (Silver, Burdett, and Company) and an occult novel, THE WITCH OF ENDOR (Vantage Press) in 1953. The latter was written as he recovered from being hit by a car in downtown Elkhart in 1952, a catastrophe his 1956 obituary suggests he never fully recovered from. His obituary further notes he resided at the Hotel Bucklen when he died and a rent receipt from that establishment is laid-in additional here.
GAUSE, Frank A. : [Manuscripts] : [Gardening]. OUR GARDEN 1941-1942 [Cover Title - Manuscript Journal on Gardening]. [Elkhart, Indiana]: (ca. 1941). Commercial journal. Approximately 12 1/2" x 8." Grey cloth over boards with black ink design, smooth maroon leather over corners. Ruled leaves, 152 numbered pages. Manuscript entries in pencil throughout. Pages 83-98, 119-120, 125-126, 137-138 all perished. pp. 131-132 with about 1/4 section of loss from lower margin. A few gatherings beginning to come loose. Entries legible, binding sound. Apart from perished contents, about good.
A manuscript gardening journal kept by Frank A. Gause (1872-1956) during about 1941-1942. Gause, a 1904 graduate of Indiana University, retired from a career as a school superintendent in various locations, including the Panama Canal Zone, and relocated to Elkhart, Indiana in about 1935 to live near and work with his son, Richard, proprietor of City Roofing and Coal Company on North Main Street.
His gardens were covered in a September 2, 1942 feature story in THE ELKHART TRUTH daily newspaper which noted Gause claimed a portion of the company’s outdoor coal storage yards to begin planting: “He had 40 yards of muck and 7 or 8 yards of marl hauled in to start the garden.” The story focuses chiefly on his vegetable growing (doting on tomatoes as large as 2 ½ lbs. each) and further descriptions in the present journal note prolific flower cultivation and ambitious design plans, planting maps, etc.., conjuring what must have been an exceptional sight: a thriving and meticulously-tended garden in the midst of coal piles and roofing materials.
The journal opens with a series of four numbered “observations,” including the following on flowers:
"Flowers respond to all our better moods - never to our courser. How they attune themselves to our joys and sorrows! And how they mock our ugly impulses! If I am pensive, so are they ; if exuberant, so are they ; if grieved or hurt, they seem to know, and sorter come close to me and sympathize. When winter comes to take them from me something within me, too, seems to sink with the earth and , like the perennial, await the call of summer, "Arise and live!"" [sic all]
It continues with dedicated entries dated between January-April 1941, serving as an outlet for his intense, often philosophical thoughts and plans on gardening. Several hand-drawn planting bed maps and layouts as well as charts on seed prices and varieties, planting schedules, etc… illustrate the journal and what appears to be a chapter draft for an in-progress or conceptual gardening-related book can be found on pp. 151.
Gause was an accomplished author who published a contemporary history of Panama in 1912 titled, THE STORY OF PANAMA: The New Route to India (Silver, Burdett, and Company) and an occult novel, THE WITCH OF ENDOR (Vantage Press) in 1953. The latter was written as he recovered from being hit by a car in downtown Elkhart in 1952, a catastrophe his 1956 obituary suggests he never fully recovered from. His obituary further notes he resided at the Hotel Bucklen when he died and a rent receipt from that establishment is laid-in additional here.
GAUSE, Frank A. : [Manuscripts] : [Gardening]. OUR GARDEN 1941-1942 [Cover Title - Manuscript Journal on Gardening]. [Elkhart, Indiana]: (ca. 1941). Commercial journal. Approximately 12 1/2" x 8." Grey cloth over boards with black ink design, smooth maroon leather over corners. Ruled leaves, 152 numbered pages. Manuscript entries in pencil throughout. Pages 83-98, 119-120, 125-126, 137-138 all perished. pp. 131-132 with about 1/4 section of loss from lower margin. A few gatherings beginning to come loose. Entries legible, binding sound. Apart from perished contents, about good.