Where Lilacs Still Bloom by Jane Kirkpatrick

Last evening I went to the Booklovers Book Club at the local library. If you like reading about American life in the early twentieth century and like flowers you will like this book. It is an easy to read biographical novel about Hulda Klager, a German housewife with an eighth grade education, who developed 254 new species of lilacs. The novel chronicles the life on farms in the early 1900's, particularly the lives of women. This was a period when women were moving beyond the traditional roles of housewife and mother.

Today, the house and garden where Hulda lived is a National Historical Site in  Woodland, Washington.  The town is near where the Lewis river meets the Columbia River, not far from the Oregon-Washington border and Portland, Oregon.

The Woodland Federated Garden Club was instrumental in saving Hulda's garden and home from being bulldozed.

The Hulda Klager Lilac Society was formed to administer the estate. The society sponsors Lilac Days in mid April through Mother's Day, an annual open house like the one Hulda began when people began to show an interest in her lilacs. There is a lot more information about the gardens at the website...

www.lilacgardens.com