Lawrence, Elizabeth, 1904-1985

Elizabeth Lewis Lawrence (1904-1985) was born in Marietta, Georgia on May 27, 1904, to Elizabeth ("Bessie") Clement Bradenbaugh Lawrence and Samuel ("Sam") Lawrence. Due to her father's business, the family moved to various towns during Elizabeth Lawrence's early childhood. Elizabeth's sister and only sibling, Ann de Treville Lawrence, was born on March 31, 1908. In 1916, the family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina where her father established the central office for the Lawrence Sand and Gravel Company. Lawrence and her sister both attended St. Mary's, a private Episcopal Church school in Raleigh. After graduating from St. Mary's in 1922, Elizabeth Lawrence attended Barnard College in New York, graduating in 1926. Following graduation, Lawrence returned home to Raleigh, where she and her mother began gardening together. In 1927, Lawrence enrolled in North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering (present-day North Carolina State University) in Raleigh. She was accepted as a special student in courses that would prepare her for work in landscape gardening. After traveling in Europe for five months in 1928, Lawrence returned to Raleigh and was admitted as a graduate student in the new three-year program in landscape architecture at North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from North Carolina State in June 1932, becoming the first woman to receive a degree in landscape design from North Carolina State. Following graduation, Lawrence began to use her own garden as a "laboratory" to learn about plants. In the 1930s, Lawrence began writing garden articles, her first efforts at finding her public voice and her audience. Her first acceptances were from "Garden Gossip," published by the Garden Club of Virginia and the Federated Garden Clubs of Virginia. "House & Garden" published four of her submissions in 1936. She continued to write articles for various publications - locally, regionally, and nationally. In 1942 Lawrence's first book, "A Southern Garden: A Handbook for the Middle South," was published by the University of North Carolina Press. In 1948 (twelve years after her father's death), Elizabeth Lawrence and her mother, Bessie, moved from Raleigh (their home for thirty-two years) to Charlotte, North Carolina to be near her sister, Ann Lawrence Way, and her family (husband, Warren Wade Way, Jr., and their children, Warren "Chip" W. Way III and Elizabeth "Fuzz" Way). Bessie Lawrence bought the two families adjacent building lots in Charlotte on Ridgewood Avenue. Elizabeth Lawrence designed the one-story house that she and her mother, Bessie, would share until her mother's death in 1964. From 1949 until near the end of her life, Lawrence would develop an extensive garden at her home at 348 Ridgewood Avenue. From this location, she would correspond with gardeners and friends extensively about her passion for gardening. Beginning in 1957, she became a weekly garden columnist for "The Charlotte Observer." She continued in this role for almost fourteen years. During her lifetime, Lawrence also wrote other garden books, including "The Little Bulbs: a Tale of Two Gardens" (1957), "Gardens in Winter" (1961), and "Lob's Wood" (1971). In 1984, Elizabeth Lawrence moved to Annapolis, Maryland to live with her niece, Elizabeth "Fuzz" Way Rogers. Lawrence died on June 11, 1985, a few weeks after her eighty-first birthday. Other volumes of her writing published posthumously include "Gardening for Love: the Market Bulletins" (edited by Allen Lacy, 1987), "Through the Garden Gate" (edited by Bill Neal, 1990), "A Rock Garden in the South" (edited by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy, 1990), "A Garden of One's Own: The Writings of Elizabeth Lawrence" (edited by Barbara Scott and Bobby J. Ward, 1997), and "Beautiful at All Seasons: Southern Gardening and Beyond with Elizabeth Lawrence" (edited by Ann L. Armstrong and Lindie Wilson, 2007). Two other significant volumes regarding Elizabeth Lawrence are "Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence - a Friendship in Letters" (edited by Emily Herring Wilson, 2002) and "No One Gardens Alone: a Life of Elizabeth Lawrence" by Emily Herring Wilson (2007).

From the description of Elizabeth Lawrence Papers, 1921-1984. (Atlanta History Center). WorldCat record id: 431450996