Et cetera : CP Historical Society plans plans trip to Sullivan Museum

Once and future Victory Gardens were the topic of a talk by Ellen Skripsky at the Center Point Historical Society Depot Museum Sunday, July 20.

Skripsky, a longtime Linn County Master Gardener from Cedar Rapids, comes by her gardening skill naturally. She remembers helping with the World War II victory gardens planted by her father Joseph Trejtner, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia as a teenager.

“When you garden with a man from Europe you don’t throw anything away,” Ellen said, remembering how her dad was always sharing garden produce at the community center and feeding people who needed help.

“My Dad had been hungry enough in Europe that he never turned anybody away.”

Now her grandson Justin Wasson, is organizing community gardens in Wellington Heights so residents can have fresh vegetables.

Her mother and aunt were noted rosarians. Famed Iowa State University rose breeder Griffith Buck named a rose after her mother Hermoine.

“It’s not a pretty rose—it’s kind of ugly,” Ellen laughed, admitting she had let the one she had die.

Ellen, who turned 87 in June, said, “I’ve tried everything, believe me, in my gardening years. And every time I think I know something I don’t know anything…I have deer in my yard and other little dickenses .”

To keep deer from eating the buds off her lilies she’s trying 3 eggs beaten with 5 quarts of water applied with a sprinkling can. “So far it’s working,” she reported.

The Victory Garden program was part of this year’s Historical Society theme of WWII and the home front. The Depot Museum is open free every Sunday afternoon from 2 to 4 though mid-October.

Historical Society Field Trip to Five Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum August 9

The Historical Society’s next special event will be a field trip to the Waterloo Grout Museum’s Five Sullivan Brothers museum on Saturday, Aug. 9. Cars will leave the Center Point Depot Museum parking lot at 9 a.m. Grout Museum admission is $10. Those planning to go should call 849-1792 so they are expected and enough cars are available. Return times will be decided by each car load.