New garden opens in Uptown Jackson

A collaborative effort is bringing flowers and memories to an empty lot in Uptown Jackson.

Known as the "Taylor Twins Memorial Garden", the garden is being introduced to the public as a quiet, peaceful place to enjoy some nature in the heart of the city.

Cassi Bock Holcomb, who owns a landscaping business, has worked with property owners and the Uptown Jackson Revitalization Organization to bring the native garden to the corner of West Main and North Missouri streets.

According to reporting by Marybeth Niederkorn, the project came from other ideas to beautify the uptown district, but the idea for a "pocket park" at the empty lot kept popping up. Holcomb said Tom Strickland, a business owner and a driving force behind putting Jackson's uptown commercial historic district contacted the property's owner, Steve Ford, Lucille Taylor Ford's son, who lives in Tennessee.

He approved the project and the new garden will be named after his mother and her twin sister.

In 1948, Niederkorn wrote, Lucille Taylor 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 and her husband Charles Ford established churches in the Ogoja province in eastern Nigeria and helped translate the New Testament into a then-unwritten language, Yala. The couple lived in Nigeria for 14 years and returned to Jackson. Charles Ford taught seventh-grade world history at the junior high for almost 30 years before his retirement, and his mother taught fourth grade at West Lane Elementary. Louise Taylor earned 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.

It's fitting that this project came together and were named for two women who lived such full lives and left a meaningful legacy. Our hope is that Jackson's residents enjoy the garden for a long time to come.