Until 1964, a 100-year old building called Wetherell House, after the family
that had built it, stood facing State Street to the south of the First Unitarian
Church. It housed the agencies of Worcester Childrens' Friend Society and
Worcester Youth Guidance Clinic. By 1964, the services of those agencies
had outgrown the space available in Wetherell House, and the agencies
moved to other locations. Their building was sold to the First Unitarian
Church in April of 1964. After brief discussion at the Prudential Committee
about converting the building into church school space, the handsome
Wetherell House (this was before the watchful eye of Preservation Worcester
looked out for old buildings of architectural merit!) was torn down.

By September of that year, the chairman of the Wetherell House Landscape
Committee, Mrs. Robert Hess, had arranged for planting of 10 flowering crab
trees, and for loaming and seeding of the center area. May 1966 Prudential
Committee minutes report a "Plan to install the parking lot garden at a cost
not to exceed $11,000 to be charged to the development fund." Worcester's
pre-eminent landscape architect, Mrs. Robert Milton (Alice) was given the
charge of designing the garden, whose construction and planting had been
completed by September, 1966. The volunteer tradition of member
maintenance began that next spring, again under the leadership of Mrs. Hess.

Mrs. Milton, whose garden designs had brought delight to so many in the
Greater Worcester area, lost her own eyesight and was confined to her
apartment in later years. I talked with her by telephone before her death in
1994 with some specific questions about plants that she had chosen for our
garden. To my awe, our garden design of 30 years past was intact in her
visual memory; she was able to recall instantly names and locations of
specific plants. We do not know if the recommendation of a White Garden
was hers; all the plant material she had selected was white, and we have
largely respected that convention.

Among the church volunteers who have tended our garden since its planting
and before our present "watch" are, in addition to the original Eliza Hess,
Libby Burguet, Frani Dewey, Claire Gurney, Dorothy Hurlburt, and Hope
Spear.