Our “Women in Wakefield” spotlight today features an extraordinary woman, who had a great impact on the look of the town.

Grace M. (Thornton) Hume was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1878. Since Mrs. Hume preferred her full title (“Mrs. Archibald Hume”), it actually took some time to discover her maiden name … and, for that matter, her first name!

We really know very little about her early life, but we have discovered that she entered Fitchburg State “Normal” School in 1898. The school, now Fitchburg State University, had just been established in 1894 as a two-year teacher’s college. “Principal Thompson took me and my mother all over Fitchburg in a horse and buggy hunting for a boarding place for me,” she reminisced at a reunion. She actually attended a four year course at the school, making our first Hartshorne House resident caretaker the first trained high school teacher to live in the house!

Grace married Hugh D. Bennie in 1903 and was widowed in 1913. In 1918, she married Archibald McGregor Hume, a widower with one daughter. Archibald was 9 years older than Grace and had had a career in sales of musical instruments. We do not know yet what convinced Grace and Archibald to leave their no-doubt comfortable home in Melrose to live at the Hartshorne House, but Grace became the first official “Hostess” at the Hartshorne House sometime after the Hartshorne House Association officially took a lease upon the property in 1931. Note: central heating and indoor plumbing were not fully installed until 1935!

By the census of 1940, Grace (61) and Archibald (71) were living upstairs at the Hartshorne House. And Grace got straight to work. For one thing, the Association offered teas and bean suppers, which the “Resident Hostess” (Grace) would prepare and serve (for a fee, of course.). The House then advertised itself as an 18th century house — its earlier history was discovered a bit later.

The issue of the gardens evolved slowly. Grace, the daughter of a florist, loved gardening, and happily began turning the barren land behind the House into a garden.

In cooperation with the “Horticultural Committee,” Graced helped develop an “Old-time herb garden” behind the House at what was then called, the “Garden Center” to help commemorate the town’s tercentennial in 1944.

During World War II, Grace decided that the cultivation of gardens could actually help townspeople survive wartime shortages. By the spring of 1943, Grace had trained a group of 15 WMHS boys, known as the Victory Garden Troopers, to work as garden helpers throughout he town. Their services were “In constant demand” by townspeople.
.
Grace’s most lasting contribution, however, was at the creation of the Floral Way. With the cooperation and enthusiastic assistance of Gardner Campbell, editor of the Wakefield Daily Item, Grace developed a plan for WWII memorial plantings based on the Cherry Blossoms in Washington, D.C. From its original conception as plantings that would entirely encircle Lake Quannapowitt, it evolved into the lovely walk, first planted in 1949 and enjoyed every year by the grateful town. (For more about “The Floral Way,” visit here: https://tinyurl.com/4kk9psvf

Archibald Hume died in 1955, but Grace went on living in the Hartshorne House until 1967. She died in Melrose in 1976, in her 98th year!

For more info on the Hartshorne House, which is still surrounded by the gardens first envisioned by Mrs. Hume, visit the organization’s website http://www.hartshornehouse.org.

“Women in Wakefield” is a series featured by the Wakefield Historical Society for Women’s History Month, offering snapshots of some of the women who have helped shaped the town. For more, check out blog at http://www.wakefieldhistory.org. Many are also being featured by the Wakefield Daily Item.