I don’t know why I didn’t buy The Gardener’s Christmas Book by Helen Snow Wilson Goddard when I saw it in a used bookstore. Instead, I put it back on the shelf, thinking to myself that I have plenty of books, I can’t buy every book, I don’t need that book.
But then I started looking up information on Helen Snow Wilson Goddard and now I kind of want that book, if for no other reason than to have a picture of those purple shutters and that purple door. According to a feature written about her in The Boston Glove on July 15, 1977, she mixed the paint herself to “match exactly the purple coloring of violets.”
She must have loved her violets to do that, so I think I like her for that reason alone.
Her Biography
Helen Snow Wilson Goddard was born in Somerville, Massachusetts on January 26, 1906 and graduated from Swampscott High School in 1922. Her first husband was Philip Wilson and they got married sometime before 1930. They had two children, a son and a daughter. By the 1950 census, Philip is gone from Helen’s census records. If I followed the records correctly, I believe they were divorced as he is listed in the 1950 census with a different wife, but I don’t have additional confirmation on that. It could be another Philip.
She married her second husband, Carl Goddard, “the woodcarver whose works are sought by collectors” around 1960.1 I base this on a mention of Carl in an article in June 1977 that stated they were married “17 years ago.” He died in 1988.
Helen spent most of her life in Nahant, Massachusetts in the home she called Willow Wind, where, according to her obituary, she enjoyed ice skating, tennis and teaching children oil painting. She died in June 2001, survived by her two children, seven grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.
Her Books
Helen wrote two books. The first book, The Gardener’s Christmas Book, an illustrated guide to decorating your home and grounds for the Yuletide season (Macmillan Co., New York) was published in 1967. Her second book, A Gardener’s Book of Arrangements, was published in 1970.
As one reviewer wrote, “Flower arrangers will enjoy this book with its eighty illustrations of how the author combined seed pods, flowers, wild flowers, fruits, vegetables and berries to make outstanding arrangements. She stresses simplicity. The book is divided into sections of spring, summer, fall and winter and she discusses plant materials available in each season. There is also a chapter devoted to Christmas arrangements.” (The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, VA, December 6, 1970)
In another article written about Helen in the Boston Globe from July 15, 1977, the author, Virginia Bohlin wrote:
“Now, at 71, she has turned to children’s books with three educational but fun books about nature… “The Pine Tree,” “Sparkly, The Drop of Water,” and “Cloud People,” already written and illustrated by her in full color but yet to be published.”
I could not find these children’s books on any of the websites I use for finding old books, so I suspect they were never published.
Helen Sounds Like An Interesting Person to Know
I read through several newspaper articles about Helen and came away feeling like Helen, who “stands but five feet in her tennis socks” was quite an interesting and entertaining person.
First, there’s the tidbit about how she mixed her own house paint so the shutters on the house would be the color of violets in bloom. I was able to determine her address from the various articles so I looked up that house and discovered that it seems to still have purple shutters, even though I think she sold it in 1995.
She described herself as a self-taught gardener, a dirt gardener, and lecturer on flower arrangements with a garden that was about one-quarter of an acre. She credits her many accomplishments with being “a doer, not a student.” Her small garden was described as “the look of lots of land in an estate-like setting.”
One area was described as a “sunbar” because it was an area of the garden decorated with hanging plants and one of her husband’s wood carvings. “We come here to drink nothing but the sun.”
Another article about one of her talks described her as “sparkling with natural wit.” That article is readily available, so here’s a link for you to read about her yourself.
Now wouldn’t you have liked to attend one of her lectures? I would have, and I wish I’d bought that book when I had the chance. I may still find a copy online to buy.
Do you know of other women authors of gardening books that I should research as Lost Ladies of Garden Writing? Send them my way via a comment or email!
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I’ll return with the next Lost Lady of Garden Writing article in two weeks. In the meantime, you can find me in several places: my website and blog, The Gardenangelists podcast, and my weekly newsletter, In the Garden With Carol.
I did a brief search for Carl Goddard’s wood carvings. They are indeed collectible.
I wonder if she was a member of The Herb Society of America?