80-year-old memorial maple removed at Aurora Historical Society
The Aurora Historical Society recently bid farewell to a favorite old tree in front of the Tanner House Museum. The large red maple, dedicated on Arbor Day in 1942 in memory of Grace Carter Bliss, a well-known local gardener and high-ranking leader of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, had been in decline for a number of years, according to John Jaros, executive director of the society.
The Davey Tree Expert Company, founded in 1880 and the oldest tree care company in the U.S., with a local office in Naperville, removed the tree as a donation to the historical society.
"We came out here at the request of the historical society to evaluate the museum campus," said Charles Shonts of Davey. "We determined that although there are several trees of concern, the red maple should be replaced first because of its prominence in the landscape."
The Davey crew also removed dead limbs from a large locust tree behind the house and trimmed an oak tree that was interfering with an elm.
The trees surrounding the Tanner House today are mostly from the period 1940-1970. "We don't have any trees or landscaping from the era of the Tanner family, whose members lived here from 1857-1934," said Mary Clark Ormond, president of the Aurora Historical Society. "We know from old letters that they had some Victorian favorites like lilacs and smokebushes, but we haven't found out anything about the trees, other than what we can glimpse in a few old photographs, like the elm tree out front on Oak Avenue in 1872. That tree is no longer there."
The Tanner Historic District, however, still has some trees dating back to the Victorian era. Neighbor Ramona Wood, whose home is nearby on West Park Avenue, has such a tree. "We have a magnificent red oak," she says, "and we can see it, just a sapling at the time, in an 1894 photo of our house. The city recently named it a Heritage Tree."
The Aurora Tree Board bestows the designation of Heritage Tree to recognize age, aesthetics, species diversity, usefulness to wildlife and historicity. "Our beautiful old trees are a big part of the character and charm of this neighborhood," adds Wood.
The Tanner House campus has benefitted over many years from donations and the gardening know-how of groups like the Tuesday Garden Club of Aurora, Women's Club of Aurora, Fox Valley Garden Club and other clubs and church groups. Ormond, who is a past president of both the Tuesday Garden Club and Fox Valley Garden Club, points with pride to the elegant larch donated and planted in 1964 by the Tuesday Garden Club.
"Those women had fine taste," she says. "What a beautiful specimen of an unusual tree." Like Wood's red oak, it is also a Heritage Tree.
Newer additions include an excellent diversity of parkway trees provided by the City of Aurora. They include a ginko, a Kentucky coffee tree, and a linden, according to Ormond.
Also new to the campus are a "Pioneer" elm donated by Wally Mundy and planted in 2012 by members of the American Legion Roosevelt Aurora Post 84 as part of their observance of the 175th birthday of the city and a native swamp white oak donated and planted in 2016 by the Aurora Women's Club to mark their 100th anniversary.
The National Federation of Women's Clubs, to which the Aurora club belongs, is the organization in which Grace Carter Bliss gained prominence for her leadership. On Arbor Day in 1942 the red maple honoring her was dedicated with a ceremony that featured not just speeches and the presentation of a plaque but a concert by the West Aurora High School Band and a performance by the drill team of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Spanish-American War Veterans.
"We are already thinking about how to replace Grace Bliss' tree," said historical society Vice President Greg Probst. "We can't promise a band concert and a drill team, but we certainly can promise that generations to come will admire and enjoy that tree." Probst, who is currently also president of the Aurora American Legion Band, pauses and then says with a twinkle, "Or, actually, maybe we can."
More information is available at www.aurorahistory.net or www.facebook.com/aurorahistory. The Tanner House is scheduled to open for the summer season on June 7, national health circumstances permitting.