Algine Neely

Gardening in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

I would never have found Algine Neely if I hadn’t been looking at old editions of newspapers that have been digitized, indexed, and put online for us to review. Those newspapers had gardening pages, even sections, that were full of interesting articles about gardening. In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, many of the gardening articles in the mid-20th century were written by Algine Neely.

Aline Neely, from Winston-Salem Journal, April 1982

As soon as I saw her picture in the Winston-Salem Journal from April 1982, I knew Algine was the kind of gardener and garden writer that we’d all like to know. Just look at her smiling picture! So I decided to make her the next Lost Lady of Garden Writing.

Her Biography

According to an article in the April 14, 1982 edition of the Winston-Salem Journal, Algine was born in New York City to Eloise Martin Foy and James Oliver Foy. She graduated from Salem Academy and attended Salem College where she was in the class of 1917. Both are in the Winston-Salem area.

I filled in a few blanks via Ancestry.com but also got myself a little confused, until I realized her daughter had the same name. I’m pretty sure Algine was born on Dec. 22, 1896, and got married in 1918 to Julius D. Neely and had one daughter, also named Algine. Though our garden writer Algine may have been born in New York City, by the 1900 census, she and her parents were living in North Carolina.

She died April 13, 1982, in North Carolina

Her Garden Writing

The main reason no one has probably heard of Algine is that I don’t think she wrote any books.

What she did do was start the Sunday garden page for the Winston-Salem Journal, serving as its editor from 1938 - 1966. Per an article about her in 1982:

“She once said that she thought there was a lack of education and training about growing flowers. She said that she was not an expert, but that she was willing to learn about gardening and pass on to others what she had learned.

She put herself to the task of learning gardening so intently that she became recognized nationally. She wrote articles for Flower Grower, Progressive Farmer, House and Garden, and Horticulture magazines.”

Per the article, she also formed the city beautification committee (for Winston-Salem) which developed “competitive projects to improve the looks of the city.”

According to the article, she was also selected as a fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society of England, one of only a few Americans ever to be chosen at the time. She was also a member of the Garden Writers Association of America (now GardenComm).

When she retired from being the editor of the garden page, the chairman of the board of the Winston-Salem Journal, Gordon Gray, commissioned Kensington Orchids, which he owned, to develop an orchid in her honor. It’s a cattleya orchid called Algine Neely.

Her Articles

For one edition of the newspaper in April 1956, she had articles with titles like, “April Called Green Light for Many Garden Projects,” “Arrangers Given Ideas on Colors,” and “Greenhouse Gardeners Get Advice.” There’s also a black & white photo of her own white-blooming redbud, with her home address. I wonder if that tree is still there? I don’t think it is, but I did use the address to find pictures of her lovely home, a white colonial-style 4-bedroom, 3-bath home.

Week after week, for 28 years, she wrote several articles for the newspaper’s garden page.

I also noticed that she often quoted Elizabeth Lawrence, a garden writer based on Raleigh then Charlotte, North Carolina, who certainly isn’t as lost as some since she published several books and there is at least one biography written about her.

But Algine? She seems to have been forgotten.

Maybe This is Why Books Matter?

I wonder if Algine had ever written a book if she would have been more well-known or at least discoverable. Instead, she fits in that same category of Lost Ladies who wrote for newspapers or magazines but never published a book, like Bea Jones, Mrs. L. L. Huffman, and even Zila Robbins.

That’s why I encourage anyone who writes about anything online or for magazines to figure out how to publish a book. A book is a physical object that can be found, perhaps in the back of a used bookstore or hidden in the remnants of an estate sale. It exists. It can be discovered.

Do you know of other women authors of gardening-related books that I should research as Lost Ladies of Garden Writing? Send them my way via a comment or email!

And if you find these articles interesting and think others will, too, please share them and subscribe.

I’ll return with the next Lost Lady of Garden Writing article in two weeks, on April 16th. In the meantime, you can find me in several other places online: my website and blog, The Gardenangelists podcast, and my weekly newsletter, In the Garden With Carol.