
Children working in the Brookline School Garden
in 1920.
On September 23, 1920, the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette reported on a Garden Show hosted at Brookline School, featuring
a joint exhibit of the best selections from vegetable gardens maintained by
pupils of the Brookline and West Liberty Schools.
"Rose Metz, aged 14, a pupil in the West
Liberty School, won three first prizes, one each for cabbage, tomatoes and beans.
Other first prize winners of the West Liberty School were Lucille Berger for
carrots and Ruth Hixenbaugh for summer squash. The West Liberty school garden
is located along Pioneer Avenue across the street from the school."
The Brookline school garden contest was
also marked with a fine show of vegetables. The winners of first prizes were
Ralph Thompson for beans, Esther Schmidt, beans; Olive Alwes, tomatoes; and
Edward Boltenfield for carrots. Harold Dumbell is captain of the Brookline
School garden, located along Pioneer Avenue at Rossmore."

The September 26, 1920, the Pittsburgh Daily Post
ran a long feature on the 1920 competition, which we've copied here:
A garden produce exhibit was hele in the
Brookline public school last Wednesday night. Now that in itself is nothing
remarkable, to be sure, but it wasn't an ordinary exhibit. All of the members of the
vegetable tribe were present - all that are listed in the seed catalogues, and then
some. There were tomatoes that looked like balloons, beans large enough to choke the
most gluttonous of thieving fowls, cabbages, peppers, radishes, potatoes, squashes,
onions, beets, carrots, cucumbers, egg plant, lettuce, Swiss chard and all the rest
of the garden aristocracy.
The exhibits filled two long tables, which
trembled under the weight of them. Each article was polished until it glistened in the
electric light. Some were placarded and bedecked with blue, red or white
ribbons.
Pupils of the Brookline and West Liberty schools
raised the produce on the plots they worked during the summer. The exhibit was held under
the Department of Nature Study and School Gardens of which John A. Hollinger is the
director.
One day last May the ground adjoining the Brookline
institution was divided into miniature farms, each 8 1/2 by 16 feet, under the direction of
Principal J. F. Moore. There were just 104 of the little plots, and they were apportioned
to as many pupils. The same procedure was undergone at the West Liberty school, which
started 88 embryo farmers in business. Each young tiller of the school soil then decided
upon a vegetable that he of she favored, and lo! the race was on!
Through the spring and the too quickly terminated
vacation the young agriculturalists plowed, hoed, raked, trapped bugs in their lair,
gathered weeds when they got ripe, and did all of those things which have given hours of
pleasure (?) to most every enterprising suburbanite. In the course of time queer things
began to shoot up out of the ground which were not weeds, gratification was brought to
young hearts and a bumper crop was predicted.
And while the youngsters were busy, their parents
caught the fever and began to steal the farming paraphernalia after bedtime. They made home
gardens and community gardens, and in their spare time went over to talk with the kids about
the possibilities of a drought. Brookline and West Liberty were farming!
Last Tuesday the children's toil ended. The final
trip to the gardens was made (the last before the end of the competition) and the young
ones gathered their choicest products for the exhibit. Then, after weeks of hopeful
waiting, the awards of the judges were made.
Out of the eager throng of youthful farmers and
farmerettes there emerged one Rose Metz, 14 years old, champion agriculturalist of the
two schools. Rose, with the beans, tomatoes and cabbages that she had protected throughout
the long summer against bugs, weather and West Liberty's domestic animal tribe, won
three first prizes. With the ribbon-winning vegetables before her, Rose shyly explained
the great secret last Wednesday.
"It's not hard," she confided. "All you've got
to do is keep the weeds and bugs away. I've had lots of fun doing it." - she stroked the
cabbage head fondly - "these are my pets."
All of the children appear to have had "lots of
fun" doing it. In the school hall, as part of the exhibit, were the garden utensils which
were used. Hanging on the shaft of a diminutive plow was a placard marked "Our Field
Artillery." More than one potato used in the exhibit is a household pet, and several of
the spuds have been christened.
Other prize winners are: Brookline school -
First prizes, Captain Harold Dumbell, Esther Schmidt, Olive Allwes, Edward Bottenfield
and Ralph Thompson; second prizes, Theresa Shervenski, Alice Fisher and William Davis;
third prize, Clifton Bradshaw. From the West Liberty school - First prizes, Rose Metz,
Ruth Hixenbaugh, Lucille Berger, Jean Francis, Mary Edmonds and Charles Magnani;
second prizes, Edward Walter, Helen Bartsch and Mary Edmonds; third prize, Edith
Nordquist.
Part of the garden produce raised will be
given to the children to take home. The rest will be distributed among the schools of
the city that did not have gardens of their own, for use in the cooking departments.
In addition to one day's harvest which resulted in the great quantity of vegetables
used in the exhibit, $516.65 worth of produce was sold during the summer. This amount
was gotten from the crops of the school and community gardens. |