Longtime garden caretaker Louis Stearns encouraged people to “make friends with nature.”
It’s clear by his passion for gardening that he practiced what he preached – and it is fitting that he is one of two horticulturists for whom Bridgewater State’s garden is named.
Named For
Louis Stearns and Robert McNamara
The Backstory
In the early 1900s, Bridgewater Principal Albert Boyden donated two acres of land to the school to be used for a garden. At that time, gardening was commonly taught in elementary schools. Thus, teacher preparation colleges like Bridgewater needed gardens to prepare students for their future careers as educators.
Bridgewater built a greenhouse in 1911 – the same year that Stearns began teaching here.
From 1911 to 1944, Stearns taught nature-related courses such as botany, horticulture and landscape design. He was also the superintendent of the greenhouse and school gardens. After his retirement, Bridgewater State named the garden that he so lovingly tended after him.
In dedicating its yearbook to Stearns, the Class of 1932 wrote that his “varied interests have molded a personality of true worth.”
The garden is also named after McNamara, who worked as a laboratory technician and greenhouse caretaker in the 1950s and 1960s. He passed away in a car crash in 1975.
Use Today
Located in a bucolic wooded area between Pope Hall and the Dana Mohler-Faria Science and Mathematics Center, the garden includes more than 80 trees identified on an interactive map created by current Greenhouse Manager Emma Welch. An outdoor classroom offers faculty a chance to teach courses within nature. Meanwhile, today’s greenhouse supports BSU classes in several disciplines as well as faculty and student research.
Material in this article comes from “Stearns/McNamara Memorial Botanical Garden” by Greenhouse Manager Emma Welch and the 1932 yearbook.