Ida D. Bennett

From Michigan

POSSIBLY a picture of ida D. Bennett, from one of her books

Over the years, I’ve purchased most of the books written by the next Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Ida D. Bennett, beginning with The Flower Garden (1910). I bought that first book over 20 years ago on impulse from a bookseller who had set up shop for the weekend at the local mall.

After flipping through the book for a bit, I put it on a shelf and forgot about it for the most part.

About 10 years late, I pulled The Flower Garden off the shelf and asked myself, “Who was Ida D. Bennett”?

Turns out, she was the author of several gardening books and countless articles on gardening. I wrote several blog posts about her around 2011, but haven’t thought much about her since. But she deserves a place as a Lost Lady of Garden Writing. Let’s meet her!

Her Biography

Ida D. Bennett was born in 1854, 1859 or 1860 and died in 1925. 1854 is what appears to be on her grave marker on the Find-A-Grave website. Other records show other dates, but I think 1854 is the correct date.

She lived most of her life in Coldwater, Michigan. The census records up through 1900 list her as Ida Elizabeth Bennett, but by the 1910 census, she is listed as Ida D. Bennett. The D stands for Dandridge, but I have no idea why or how her name changed. By 1920, she is listed as “head of household,” living alone. Prior to that, she lived with her widowed mother. She never married.

I am grateful to “Theresa from Coldwater” who commented on a 2011 blog post I wrote on my website with more information about Ida.

The local library had a file dedicated to anyone with the family name of Bennett. Ida by far had the most information in the file. The historical/genealogy room had copies of two of her books.

Born in Coldwater on Jan 3, 1860. I found a reference to a brother, William, and a sister, Mrs.Warren Blauvit, in her father’s obituary. She graduated from an Art College in Chicago in 1885. She taught at a boarding school in Grand Haven, MI, and then took a position at Emporia College in Kansas. While preparing to return home for the summer, she dropped her revolver and shot herself in the chest. Her brother was dispatched to bring her home to recover. After her recovery, she spent much time with her father, who was a landscaper. She turned to writing to support herself.

Ida wrote at least five books and many published articles in American Homes and Garden magazine. Her life was filled with her gardens. She was generous with her flowers, giving many to sick neighbors. Skilled in the language of flowers, she liked to match flowers to a personality.

Miss Ida Bennett led a long, productive life as a self-supporting woman in a time when women did not have careers.

But she had a tragic end to her story. At the age of 73, she had been practically bedridden for four years, she was forced to sell her home. Ida then became despondent and committed suicide on April 4, 1925.

I don't want you to feel sad for her. It sounds like she enjoyed life and had many friends. She enjoyed using her gardens to make many occasions in the Coldwater area festive. Her life story became part of a series written in 1986 about Historic Women for National Women’s History Week.”

Thank you Theresa from Coldwater!

Her Books

Ida wrote five books on gardening, including:

The Flower Garden: A Manual for the Amateur Gardener. The copy I have is part of a series of books called “The Garden Library” and was published in 1910 by Doubleday, Page, and Company, New York. There also appears to be an earlier edition published in 1903 by McClure, Phillips and Co., and a later edition called “Flower Growing” published in 1924 by Doubleday,

The Vegetable Garden: A Manual for the Amateur Gardener, also part of “The Garden Library” series of books, published in 1908 by Doubleday, Page, and Company, New York.

The Busy Woman’s Garden Book, published by Small, Maynard & Company, 1920.

The Making of a Flower Garden, published by Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, 1919.

Dreer’s Hints on the Growing of Bulbs, co-authored with Henry A Dreer and published by Dreer, who seems to be from Philadelphia.

Through Google Books, I also found several magazine articles written by Bennett on a variety of topics.

Quotable

Ida wrote in a straightforward manner in all of her books.

She can both scare and seduce you into growing vegetables. I quote from Chapter One of The Vegetable Garden written in 1908 for the scare.

“Recent legislation has focused public attention in no small degree upon the subject of pure food. Just what goes into the composition of the food we eat is becoming more and more a matter of inquiry by the consumer.”

And here’s the seduction quote:

There are no vegetables like those which come wet with the morning dew from one’s own garden to grace the breakfast table with the toothsome crispness of the scarlet radish or the fresh coolness of lettuce.”

They both ring true even today.

In The Busy Woman’s Garden Book, Ida wrote,

One cannot garden successfully on the principle that one can work in the garden when there is nothing else to do, no one to play with, nowhere to go…

This was one of the “attentions” that she advised be paid to the garden to be a successful gardener.

Unanswered Questions

There are always unanswered questions about these Lost Ladies of Garden Writing. For Ida, we can ask when and why did her name change from Ida Elizabeth Bennett to Ida Dandridge Bennett?

I’m not completely sure of her birth year. I’ve seen in listed as 1858, 1859, and 1860.

She graduated from art college which makes me wonder if there are any paintings by Ida buried in an antique store somewhere up in Michigan.

I’ll stop there with my questions.

Ida is an interesting and somewhat mysterious Lost Lady of Garden Writing. I think this winter, I’ll be pulling her books from the shelf to see what else she can teach us today about gardening.