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By Elizabeth Groppe

One of my favorite places to spend a summer Ohio morning is in our family garden of lavender bee balm and ripening cherry tomatoes. But last summer, I deepened my appreciation for gardening in the Marian Library!

The Marian Library is home to the John Stokes and Mary’s Gardens archives, and it was with these archives that I spent my time as a Marian Resident Scholar. The librarians have digitized some of this archival material, making it widely available in eCommons, the University of Dayton’s institutional repository. But given my research and teaching in theology and care for creation, I wanted to learn more. With wonderful support from Kayla Harris, Michele Jennings, Shari Neilson and Henry Handley, I was introduced to an amazing collection. Materials include newspaper and magazine clippings; garden diagrams; spreadsheets of data on seed germination times and test plots; handwritten letters; photographs; journals; thank you notes from Girl Scouts (among many others); sealed seed packets that rattle with the sound of seed within them; and much more!

Who Is John Stokes? What Is a Mary’s Garden? 

In 1946, John S. Stokes Jr. (1920-2007) was a recent convert to Catholicism when he read a reprint of the article “Lillie Tower” by Father James J. Galvin, C.Ss.R., in Our Lady’s Digest. Galvin described a garden that Frances Crane Lillie had planted in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, that featured an Annunciation statue by V.M.S. Hannell is surrounded by flowers with Marian names.

The article by Galvin planted a seed in Stokes’ imagination that germinated in 1949 when he enrolled in the course The Postulates of Economics at St. Joseph’s College (now St. Joseph’s University) in Philadelphia. Stokes and the course instructor, Edward A.G. McTague, were having conversation around Catholic social tradition and economics beside a marigold patch in McTague’s backyard garden. Stokes asked McTague if he was aware that the name “Mary’s gold” originated in the English countryside, where the marigold was a symbol of Mary’s heavenly glories. McTague was not aware of this, and, according to Stokes, “he instantly perceived that religious plant symbolisms, in augmentation of their physical showing forth of God’s attributes, might make an important contribution to heightening religious reverence and stewardship for the creatures and products of nature generally, in love of God and neighbor and with justice for all.”

Hence, the Mary’s Gardens apostolate was born. The two men set up operation out of McTague’s Philadelphia home; conducted extensive horticultural and historical research; identified appropriate species of flowers for a Mary garden planting; tested seeds; prepared seed packets; ran advertisements; composed brochures that combined spiritual reflection with planting instruction; designed prayer cards; gave public presentations; and waited to see what would come in response. In 1982, when they celebrated the jubilee of Lillie’s original Mary garden, 60 articles about Mary gardens had appeared in the Catholic press; over 30,000 mail orders and letters had arrived in the apostolate’s mailbox; and Mary gardens had been planted not only across the United States, but also in Canada, Ireland, the Philippines and Japan.

What Now?

• An article based on Groppe’s Marian Library research is forthcoming in the journal U.S. Catholic Historian. 
• Groppe, in collaboration with the Marianist Environmental Education Center, will lead a free public presentation on Mary gardens from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, in the Gathering Place on the second floor or Roesch Library. All are welcome.

The complete article “A Summer Garden in the Marian Library” is available in eCommons.

— Elizabeth Groppe is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton and the recipient of the 2024 Resident Scholar Fellowship.