Tower Hill. John W Trexler
I should have quit while I was ahead. With the second pinch, I managed to systematically remove all the flower buds. My first attempt at “advanced” gardening was a dismal failure.
At around the same time, my mother and I went to one of the local garden centers, just to browse. We happened upon a small lilac shrub, (Syringa vulgaris). My mother waxed on about the beauty and fragrance of the flowers, a memory of her childhood in Rhode Island, and then impulsively bought the shrub. We found a good location for it. We dug into the clayey soil and made a hole the size of the root ball, planted the shrub and then watered it in. Something told me to water the plant everyday, so I did. Every day. With that kind of attention the plant could do only one thing, die. And die it did. My first attempt at growing a woody plant was an outright failure.
Lilacs were among Emily Trexler’s favorite plants.
In 2012 a Lilac Garden was dedicated in her memory at Tower Hill.
One of the most beautiful native trees in northern Virginia is the southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora). A friend had a wooded area adjacent to his home which contained several seedlings and saplings of southern magnolia. I asked if I could have one and his mother said, “Yes.” Early the following Saturday my older sister and I, with shovel in hand, went to the woodland and decided to dig a seven-foot sapling. Needless to say we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. We chopped and dug and managed to get the tree out of the ground with no soil on the roots and only about eighteen inches around the roots. We carried the tree the half-mile back to our house. We dug a hole just big enough to contain the spindly tree. True to form, I watered the tree every day. After a month the leaves began to fall off. Yet again, my efforts at gardening produced another failure.
Building Rome
During the same period, I found a book in my high school library titled Rome and the Romans by Grant Showerman, Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Director of Summer Sessions at the American Academy in Rome. This book had a profound affect on me. I checked it out at least nine times, until I eventually lied and said I lost it. My mother paid the five-dollar fine and the book was mine. (In 2012 I bought another copy on Amazon for twelve dollars.) The book is profusely illustrated with photographs and drawings by two German artists, Bühlmann and Wagner. I was enamored with the drawing of the Roman Forum and I got it into my head to build a model of the Forum based on one of the drawings. I took many quarters out of my mother’s wallet to purchase the building materials: poster board, typing paper, Elmer’s Glue and Scotch Tape. Halfway into the project I rejected the effort due to the scale and started over again. My mother would later comment how I had the “patience of Job,” especially when I sculpted Corinthian capitals out of typing paper. The model took a long time to complete and occupied a large part of our family room. After several weeks, my mother mustered the courage to tell me I had to remove it for the sake of a rearrangement of furniture. I stomped the thing flat then sulked for a day. The model lives on in black and white photos, looking pretty good considering it was done by an immature fourteen-year-old.
John’s model of the Roman Forum, c. 1966
In the same book, I was awed by a drawing of the Temple of Juno Moneta, a detail from a larger drawing by Bühlmann and Wagner. I asked a friend, Ronald Lyle, if he would copy it. I paid him twenty-five dollars from my paper route savings and supplied the material, poster board and No. 2 pencils. It took him weeks to do it but the end result was extraordinary considering he was sixteen. I had the picture framed and it remains a treasured possession.
Busted
My fascination with Rome inspired an interest in classical art. I was particularly drawn to statuary. In Hollin Hall Plaza there was a gift shop run by a pleasant fussy man who wore glasses attached with a chain around his neck—something clicked in my head that he was somehow “different.” The merchandise and overwhelming fragrances of candles and potpourri intrigued me. Among the clutter of items were two twelve inch busts of composers Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. I was enamored with classical music and especially Mozart and Beethoven. I asked the shop owner if he had busts of them and he said, “No.” Drawn more to the busts themselves than to the subjects, I paid the five dollars each and carried them home in the basket of my bike. My parents were puzzled as to why their sixteen-year-old son made such a purchase but I ignored their questions, went to my bedroom and positioned the busts on my bureau. Satisfied with the effect, I now owned a little bit of faux art to appease my burgeoning obsession with all things classical.
College days, 1970
Chapter Three
Taking Root
Above: American chestnut (Castanea dentate)
In early 1968, my father retired from the Navy and we moved to Barrington, Rhode Island, between my junior and senior year of high school. Little of importance happened until I went off to college in late August of 1969, except perhaps my many failed attempts to get into college.
I had come to the conclusion that I needed to grow up, learn a trade and get on with life. I decided I wanted to be an architect and applied to the University of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island School of Design, Drexel Institute, Pratt Institute, and the University of Massachusetts. One by one, I received polite letters of rejection. In 1969 you had two choices, college or Vietnam. My father didn’t want me to go into the military and I didn’t want to go to Vietnam.
My father suggested I go have a talk with my guidance counselor. Mr. Coen was aware of my five rejections and we both concluded that it was unlikely that I would become an architect. He asked what else I enjoyed doing. After some quiet thought, I answered, “Gardening.”
“Ah, horticulture,” he responded.
“Horti what?” I asked.
He explained that horticulture was, in fact, gardening and suggested I apply to a school in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, that offered a major in it. He handed me the course catalog for Delaware Valley College of Science and Agriculture and sent me on my way. I was to return the next day and tell him my impression of the school. After I showed my parents the catalog, I went to my room to read it cover to cover. I knew, or at least thought I knew, that I wanted to major in what was called ornamental horticulture. The next day my counselor called the college admissions office and described my interest in ornamental horticulture. Delaware Valley accepted me over the phone. All I had to do was go through the formality of the application process. A week later I graduated from Barrington High.
Summer went by quickly. I was occupied by my job as a hospital janitor and on days off sailed with my sister on Narragansset Bay. I dreamed of escaping to college.
When college began the last week of August 1969, I was determined to make new friends and be part of a like-minded family.
Ginkgo Stinko
The first few weeks were taken up by the hazing period. Freshmen wore silly beanies called “dinks” and had to do whatever any sophomore told us to do. In the center of the Delaware Valley campus, there was an allée of Ginkgo trees (Gingko biloba). Gingkos are dioecious meaning some trees are male and others female. The females are known for bearing foul-smelling fruit and the trees in the allée were all female. Two sophomores instructed me to hop on one foot the length of the allée. I politely said, “No.” They said I had to. I refused, less politely this time.
“Do it!” they demanded.