Gathering Place and Garden

Gathering Place and Garden. Idabelle Firestone.

"A garden sweet, a garden small, , Where rambling roses creep along the walls; , Where dainty phlox and columbine , Are nodding to the trumpet vine." , Excerpts from "In My Garden" , by Idabelle Smith Firestone

, A place to make memories. A place to come together to celebrate music and theatre as a community. A place to bask in the color and fragrance of a garden. The Gathering Place and Garden embodies all of these experiences as a tribute to Idabelle Smith Firestone., Snapshot of a Lady , Mrs. Firestone was much more than the devoted wife of Harvey S. Firestone. As a homemaker, caring mother, composer of music, and philanthropist, she was a woman of substance in her own right. Her admiration for flowers and love of music formed the basis for many achievements in the later years of her long and fruitful life. She was a gifted composer, writing many popular romantic songs of the 1930's and 1940's. "In My Garden" and "If I Could Tell You" served as the iconic opening and closing themes for the nationally-broadcast "Voice of Firestone" radio and television programs. In 1948, Mrs. Firestone was elected to the prestigious American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers., To honor her passion for flowers, David Burpee, an internationally-known plant hybridist, developed the largest and most colorful French marigold cultivar of the day and named it the "Idabelle Firestone Marigold." While the seed bank has been lost for this cultivar, you will find other French marigold varieties as well as columbine, phlox and roses in the Garden - plants she took every opportunity to sprinkle throughout her song lyrics and her life.