Taylor Twins Garden in Jackson will be dedicated Saturday

Everyone asks about the Taylor Twins.

Cassi Bock Holcomb, owner of Cassi Bock Landscaping, said that's the question she gets most often about the garden at the corner of West Main and North Missouri streets in Jackson that will be dedicated at a 1 p.m. ceremony Saturday.

The event will take place during the Jackson in Bloom celebration, which runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Jackson's courthouse square.

A metal arch above the garden entrance reads "Taylor Twins Memorial Garden" and includes the names Lucille and Louise, who were twin daughters born to Vera Gale and Zelma Catherine Talley Taylor in 1923, according to Lucille's son, Steve Ford.

"The Taylor twins, Lucille and Louise, were not famous people, but they were important people," Ford said. "They left their mark on so many lives -- not just on family and friends, but also on the many students they taught over the many, many years. It is only fitting that a garden so beautiful be dedicated to them for living such full and fulfilling lives."

The Taylor Twins Memorial Garden in Jackson, which uses native plants and stone foundation from the original building there, will be dedicated Saturday.BEN MATTHEWS

The twins' father owned and operated a plumbing business from 1914 to 1945 at 201 W. Main St. in Jackson. He died in 1946.

Louise and Lucille grew up in a home on Dallas Street that is still standing, Ford said.

The twins attended Jackson High School, graduating in 1941.

During their senior year, Lucille was chosen as Jackson High School's Silver Arrow Queen. In 1948, Lucille received her teaching degree from what was Southeast Missouri State College, which later became Southeast Missouri State University. Her teaching career took her to Peoria, Illinois; Blodgett, Missouri; and back to Jackson, where she was a member of First Baptist Church.

Lucille attended Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, received a bachelor of religious education degree and became a missionary to Nigeria.

Lucille met and married Charles Ford in 1954 while they were teaching in Nigeria, Steve Ford said, and they went on to establish churches in the Ogoja province in eastern Nigeria and helped translate the New Testament into a then-unwritten language, Yala.

Steve Ford said his parents lived in Nigeria for 14 years and returned to Jackson. His father taught seventh-grade world history at the junior high for almost 30 years before his retirement, Steve Ford said, and his mother taught fourth grade at West Lane Elementary.

Of their five children, two were born in Nigeria, he said.

Louise took a different path than her twin sister, graduating from Jackson High School and Southeast, but earning her master's degree from Columbia University in New York. She then studied in Europe, observing Montessori schools.

She taught art, starting in Holland, Missouri, then heading to Union, Missouri, and Springfield, Missouri, ending her career in North Kansas City's school district.

Louise retired to Jackson, where she continued to paint, and several of her paintings were displayed in various venues in Cape Girardeau and Jackson.

"They both loved nature, and they both loved color," according to the dedication program.

Holcomb said the Taylor Twins Memorial Garden was a natural outgrowth of ongoing beautification efforts in uptown Jackson.

Holcomb, a member of Uptown Jackson Revitalization Organization, or UJRO, said the plan originally was to fill in planter boxes and hanging baskets on South High Street and Main Street.

Then there was the vacant property at 201 W. Main St.

Holcomb said the building was gone, and the lot was near uptown, so it seemed a natural fit to try to beautify the lot, as well.

"[Jackson building superintendent and UJRO board member] Janet Sanders had several ideas for how we could improve the lot," Holcomb said. As the two discussed options, the idea of a pocket park kept popping up.

Holcomb said Tom Strickland, owner of Strickland Engineering in Jackson and a driving force behind putting Jackson's uptown commercial historic district on the National Register of Historic Places, could contact the property's owner, and he did, calling Steve Ford, Lucille Taylor Ford's son, who lives in Tennessee.

At the initial meeting among Holcomb, Sanders and Ford on Thanksgiving weekend two years ago, Holcomb said she and Sanders arrived with two sets of plans: one was a multi-phase project spanning a few years, and the other was a smaller design.

"He just wanted us to go with it," Holcomb said.

They did.

Holcomb said her interest in native plants coincided with Ford's desire for natives in the garden.

"It was exciting, because in Tennessee, they have a bigger plant palette" because of the longer growing season, Holcomb said. Ford's different perspective helped inform her plant choices.

Ford said he had two stipulations at the outset.

"Number one, I wanted to use only native plants, native to North America," Ford said, "and I wanted to be able to name the garden."

Ford added, "I don't know that I had any previously conceived plans to have a garden in honor of my mother and her twin sister, but it seemed like the right thing to do."

Ford said he wanted to use native plants because not only do they support local wildlife better, but native plants also require less maintenance over the long term.

"I do a fair amount of planting on my property in Tennessee," Ford said, adding he has plans for more native plantings. "I do feel strongly about encouraging more people to use native plants as opposed to exotic imports because so many have become invasive and are taking over, choking out natives."

Ford's interest in native plants dovetails with his interest in genealogical research, he said.

"It is amazing, the things that get lost and forgotten if no one has an interest in them, and preservation of old buildings. I just think it's a crying shame when old buildings get torn down to make way for the new," he said. "I think something gets lost in the way."

Holcomb said her first action on the lot at 201 W. Main St. was to inventory and excavate the original stone foundation, still partially buried, of the building that once housed Ford's grandfather's plumbing business.

"We were able to build the stone benches using some of those foundation blocks," Holcomb said.

"We hope people will really use it," Holcomb said, adding she's been approached by several community members who have told her they've already been by the garden. "That's what it's there for."

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630

Pertinent address: 201 W. Main St., Jackson, Mo.