Photos by Mike Salsbury/The Olympian
Tumwater resident Frances Millam, who turned 90 on Saturday, is still an active gardener.

Millam has a sign at her home to help friends find her.

Gardening mentor

Frances Millam hasn't stopped learning, growing

SARAH JACKSON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published September30, 2001

TUMWATER -- Flower gardening didn't come easy at first for one of Olympia's most heralded horticulturists -- Frances Millam.

But it wasn't for lack of natural talent.

Busy milking cows, cooking and cleaning on a small dairy near Pe Ell in the 1920s, Frances considered herself lucky as a little girl to grow vegetables -- essential to feed her sisters, brothers and parents.

"We did not have time for flower gardens," Frances said. "We weren't allowed to roam the town, so we roamed the hills instead. We knew where all the spring beauties were."

Those beauties -- it seemed to Frances -- were a display of God's creativity, her connection to the earth.

These days, Frances -- who turned 90 on Saturday -- maintains an outdoor bounty of blooms at her Tumwater home, a sanctuary lush with fuchsias, begonias, roses, dahlias and hundreds of unique plants.

Honored by the Olympia Garden Club for outstanding service and for her milestone this week, Frances continues -- friends and members say -- to leave indelible marks on the hearts and gardens of friends.

Her plants -- created from starts -- grow from Cooper Point to Tumwater and beyond.

That's why the club proclaimed last Thursday "Frances Millam Day," and why more than 50 members and visitors honored her with a standing ovation.

But Frances employs more than the traditional gardener's conventions of sharing cuttings and advice, friends say.

Frances sows seeds of enthusiasm that inspire other gardeners.

Independence

Independent, still living on her own, still driving, Frances still exudes a passion for her garden and the quest for interesting, fragrant species -- from South Africa to China.

Since retiring from 16 years of elementary school teaching in Olympia in 1972, Frances has taken up Eastern and Western flower arranging as well as pottery.

Even a hip-crushing fall more than a year ago -- and the resulting metal plate and screw in her leg -- haven't slowed Frances down or squelched her love for growing a year-round garden.

Moving along at a lively clip, Frances pushes a three-wheeled walker -- with a cordless phone tucked inside an attached bag.

Though it's raining, she's still excited to show off her sizeable fall garden -- front yard and back.

She moves easily and decisively over muddy spots and cracks in the driveway pavement, almost in a rush to get to the next blooms and leaves.

"There are so many interesting plants in this world, I just have to have some of them," Frances says. "You must see this. This is so fantastic."

Advice

Because she's horticulture coordinator for the Garden Club, Frances presents exciting finds to the club at every monthly meeting and answers questions with her sage advice.

How low should one prune phygelia? Does vinegar work as weed killer? Answers: Way down. Sometimes.

Relatively new Garden Club member Katy Putlitz of Olympia, like many in the group, calls Frances her friend and personal garden guru, a guide in the daunting and sometimes technical field.

"It's so much more fun to ask her stuff than looking in my big garden books," Putlitz said. "She is so generous with her information. I think she's a mentor to all of us."

Longtime club member Louise Adams of Olympia said Frances -- honored by First United Methodist Church in Olympia for her altar flower arrangements --also has been a player in maintaining the Washington Memorial Gardens at Olympia's Priest Point Park.

"She's been such an incredibly civic-minded person in every way," Adams said. "She's actually our house mother. She's always prepared to give advice, always prepared to teach and always prepared to listen -- and that's an important thing."

Positive person

Adams credits Frances' strength -- emotion and physical.

"She a very positive person," Adams said, citing Frances' decision to stay in the home she and her late husband, John, bought in the 1960s. When he died, they had been together for 57 years. "She kept herself together, and she forced herself into coming back and she did it."

Garden Club members Ethel Petty and Marion Sowell have learned loads about flower arranging from Frances, always ready to find answers.

"She never turns you down. She'll look it up and tell you," Petty said. "She's just a real human woman."

Sowell said Frances' decision last year -- to put in a new rose garden and greenhouse -- shows her commitment to seize the day.

Frances is always looking forward to the next spring, the next season, imagining where her plants will go.

Some seniors don't do that, Sowell said.

"They're sitting around thinking mostly about: 'When am I going to die?' " Sowell said. "That's what makes Frances live this long, is she's always thinking of the future."

"You would think a lady of her age would just do what she had to -- she doesn't, She does extra," Petty said. "She finds such enjoyment in her garden and her flowers."

Though Frances is sometimes in pain, Sowell said, it's not obvious.

Frances gardens on her knees because of back injuries and leg problems, and she turns out numerous wreaths for the club's annual fund-raiser, Merrie Makings.

Like prayer

"Working in the garden, to me, it's just like prayer," Frances said. "I feel so close to the good earth. It's very difficult for people to understand that these days because they're so far away from it.

"Gardening is a very satisfying, restful enterprise. You feel like a different person when you come inside. There is a fullness that you feel that's more than words."

Frances' pottery teacher, Joann Gaither, who teaches at the Senior Center in Olympia and for Olympia Parks and Recreation, said Frances -- in the past six years of pottery classes -- has become a true artist, merging her love of nature and flowers to create containers.

"I consider her an artist who can truly go beyond the technical realm of pottery and express herself," Gaither said. "She keeps going and going and going."

Gaither -- also a good friend -- remembers a visit she once paid to Frances. Finding that Frances wasn't answering the bell, Gaither checked around back to see if she was outside gardening.

Still no luck, but there was a feeling Frances was there, perhaps in another way.

"Her house speaks of how she is," Gaither said. "The birds were going to the feeder, the chickadees were just going to the feeder. Her spirit was everywhere."

Sense of humor

But Frances isn't all work either.

Her laughter, buoyant and merry, comes easily and often.

Frustrated once with the possum hurting birds and other wildlife in her yard, she created a clay possum and squashed him down the middle with the thick treads of a neighbor's bicycle.

Now a possum hangs on the house near her garage with a chalk outline around his mangled body with words "Road Kill" around it.

Gaither enjoys the possum story.

"She makes frogs lying on their back smiling. She brings that love of nature into her work," Gaither said. "She has that sense of humor -- that passion about nature and gardening.

"What I've taught her is miniscule compared to what she teaches other people. She's just a delightful person to be around.

"She's just a really selfless person. I don't know if I've ever met anyone like her," Gaither said. "I smile when I think of her."

Sarah Jackson writes for The Olympian and can be reached at 360-704-6871 or olyjax@yahoo.com.

Olympia Garden Club

The Olympia Garden Club is always open to new members and visitors. Learn more about gardening, attend trips and luncheons and be a part of gardening in the community. Meetings fall on the last Thursday of every month with variations in November and December. Call Ethel Petty at 360-491-2560 or e-mail epetty5812@aol.com for more information.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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