I’ve got a lot to talk about and it won’t all fit in this column. I need to keep reminding you about “O’Keeffe!,” the one-woman play coming to Malakoff’s Community Center April 12. It is absolutely wonderful, and I don’t want you to miss it. Also, I want the room to be packed so we’ll make enough money to fix the Bartlett House veranda.

I want to spend one whole column talking about Carolyn Wickwire, the world-class actress who plays Georgia O’Keeffe. And I’ve got to tell you about the Bartlett House, and the folks who are trying to fix it. This is going to be a multi-column project.

This week I’m starting with the Greater Malakoff Area Garden Club and the handful of little old ladies at the center of it. I call us that because there are so few of us, and most of us are quite old. But don’t underestimate us—we have been stirring things up all our lives, and are still at it. I hang out with these guys, but I’m not responsible for the big stuff they’ve done. However, I have an important job now. It is to get you interested in what we are doing, so maybe you will want to do it with us. There is lots of good to be done and lots of fun to be had. You need not be old to apply.

The Garden Club got started in 1999, when Matsy Walker and Paul Luker decided Malakoff needed prettying up. Some people joined up. They sold crepe myrtles cheap to businesses, and planted them free. They planted other shrubs around downtown. They gave away thousands of pine trees.

Next year they thought bigger: They’d buy the historic Bartlett House to save it. Years before, Red Waller wanted to restore it to house Malakoff’s fledgling library, but found it was too far gone. Undaunted, club members approached property owners and were disappointed to find it priced beyond their reach.

During the next few years, the club sort of dozed off. But in 2007 it awoke with a start when Jo Ann Surls and Paul Luker decided Malakoff needed a history book. A small group of volunteers worked on it for a couple of years, turning out “Malakoff, Texas,” which may be the finest history book any little town anywhere ever produced. At its core is the a treasury of material collected by the late Edna Evans. The whole community contributed stories and pictures. The editing and publishing skills of Lyn Dunsavage Young made its publication possible.

Then the Bartlett House became available. Two members dug into their own pockets and in 2008, purchased it for the club. I don’t think they wanted that spread around, but that’s just too bad; I’m telling.

The place was a mess! Old cars and vans full of rubbish were parked in that once elegant front yard, surrounded by bushes and weeds and fallen trees nearly hiding the wonderful old castle-like ruin behind them. The cellar was full of water. There was and is a huge crack running through the concrete building, and a big rusty iron rod running through the building where the former residents had tried to pull it back together.

Money from book sales paid for lots of tree work and junk car removal, and general clean up labor, as most of our little group not up to the task of physically clearing those grounds. Two exceptions were Cletus Haning and O. V. Cliver, who, as long as they were able, worked longer and harder than anybody we could hire. The sale of books and of an extra lot also helped us repair the amazing outdoor fireplace, repair brickwork around the veranda, and build part of the fence.

About the time Cletus and O.V. had to give up yardwork, reinforcement arrived in the form of Cheryl Kietscheraski, who is unique in our club as she is young, and other than Jo Ann Surls, is the only active member who seriously gardens. Last summer she and her family almost single-handedly uncovered the delights of the sunken gardens. They dug up buried ponds, pieces of arches that have now been restored to the house, found and restored some beautiful concrete tables and benches, dug and replanted thousands of daffodil and narcissus bulbs, and did what it took to create a rose garden that survived the winter. She did all this while working a full time job. She is even busier now, having bought Country Oaks Golf Course at Cross Roads. But she remains one of our most active members.

I’m out of space. Have to stop. Call me if you want to talk: 903-681-2880 or write: [email protected]

Photo by Craig D. Blackmon, FAIA