“God Almighty first planted a garden. And, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.” Francis Bacon’s Essays: Of Gardens reflects what the late Gladys B. Null surely felt among her vegetables and “a rose garden beyond compare” according to Anne Frame.
“She gardened to the age of 91, before going to Pleasant View [Rehabilitation & Health Care Center, 500 N. Jackson Street, Morrison, IL].” Null was a lifelong, “very involved” member of Morrison United Methodist Church, 200 W. Lincolnway, Morrison.
Null died at age 97 on July 2, 2006. She left a memorial to her church.
Frame brought to the Church Administrative Council the idea of using the money for a commemorative garden.
In late July 2013, seven years after her passing, Spangler’s Landscape, 12540 Lincoln Road, Morrison, built the garden at left in her memory. They installed rose bushes and a variety of plantings, a meditation bench, rocks, mulch, and flagstones on the west side of the church.
Passersby on Lincolnway will view it best from the west. One can imagine Gladys Null tending this nook and admiring the roses while seated on the bench.