Ed Schroeder points to his garden underneath one of his apple trees at his home in Chehalis on Monday, Sept. 17, 2012.
Ed Schroeder shows some of his corn stalks in his garden at his home in Chehalis on Monday, Sept. 17, 2012.
If you ever bought tomatoes at the Lewis County Master Gardener plant sale, attended a Master Gardener workshop or set foot in the Fort Borst Park Demo Garden, chances are you met Ed Schroeder.
Gardening was his life's passion, said wife, Edie, especially when it came to the Fort Borst Park garden.
“He loved it,” Edie Schroeder said. “I used to tease him sometimes. I used to say, 'If you had a choice between me and Borst Park I don't know what you'd decide.'”
So it may be fitting that to say goodbye to Ed Schroeder, who died from lung cancer on Christmas Eve 2014, Master Gardeners will gather this Saturday to plant a tree in his honor at Borst Park. The event, part of the city of Centralia's annual public Arbor Day celebration, will include a tour of the Borst Demo garden, a park trails spring cleanup and multiple tree plantings. One of those plantings is a hazelnut tree in Ed Schroeder's honor.
Both Ed and Edie Schroeder were born in Chicago and their families later moved to a suburb of Chicago, where they met when Edie was 13 and Ed was 16. Edie and Ed's sister were in school together but she said she quickly found an even better reason to ask to play at her friend's house.
“He used to throw cherries at me and throw my shoes up on the garage and, of course, I loved every minute of it,” she recalled.
Their first official date was in 1953 then Ed joined the Army and served two years as a military policeman in Panama during the Korean War. When he returned in May of 1955 he proposed and the two were married in September 1955 just before the start of college courses.
“Our honeymoon was two days in Springfield, Illinois because he had to get back for orientation,” Edie recalled.
Edie recalled that even as young people, Ed dreamed of a rural, farming life. In college, he thought about studying to become a veterinarian but instead settled on business administration. But Edie said he still dreamed of someday having a small farm.
“He always wanted to be a gentleman farmer. That was his life's goal,” she said.
In 1959 the growing family (they would eventually have two sons and a daughter) moved to California and Ed worked in the insurance industry and Edie in the banking industry until they retired in 1995.
It was nearing their retirement that Ed's dream of farming came into play. The couple bought a motor home and set out traveling to find a place where they could buy a home with some acreage perfect for a hobby farm. Despite not initially thinking much of the area, they eventually both fell in love with Chehalis and found a home on Taylor Road that was the perfect mix of a room for a small farm and not to far from town.
The Schroeders moved to Chehalis in 1996, and Ed almost immediately began taking courses to be certified as a master gardener. At that time, there was no Master Gardening program in Lewis County so he had to travel to Olympia for the training. But he soon became involved with local master gardener projects, namely the first demo garden at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds, recalled fellow master gardener and friend Mike Stedham of Chehalis. When the fairgrounds demo garden became difficult to maintain, they began looking for a new location and settled on Borst Park. Stedham said Schroeder was an instrumental force at the Borst Park Demo Garden, especially its iris bed and dahlia collection. Every fall, Schroeder was in charge of a workshop showing the public how to dig up and divide their dahlias. That workshop, usually held in October or November, was usually a very rainy event but Ed, and the public, always showed. Stedham said Ed was always reliable and always committed to Master Gardener events and efforts.
“Many times, especially in the wintertime when the weather wasn't great, Ed and I would be the only ones here,” Stedham said of the Saturday work parties at the Borst Park Demo garden. “So Ed was a faithful supporter of our demo garden.”
Schroeder also helped get a small structure built at Borst that includes a shed where Master Gardeners can store tools and a covered area where they can enjoy a coffee break, or where numerous workshops have been held.
“I think we should call it the Ed shed,” Stedham joked.
Ed had an old, plastic coffee mug he would always bring with him to Borst that Edie gave to Stedham after Ed's passing. Stedham painted the mug gold and wrote “Ed” on it in black marker. It is prominently displayed at the shelter during coffee breaks at the garden.
“That way Ed is with us,” Stedham said.
Known as a tomato and dahlia expert, Ed annually grew hundreds of the coveted tomato plants sold at the master gardeners' annual plant sale. He also volunteered his time at the sale, often in the tomato area where he was available to help people shop and to answer questions. Jane Walker, an honorary master gardener who has volunteered at the Borst Demo Garden the last three years, said Ed's approach to everyone was always the same whether a fellow garden expert or a gardening newbie.
“The man was so precious to all of us,” Walker said. “He was always so gracious. No matter who came by he always welcomes them and talk to them and had time for them. You never got the impression he knew more than you. He was so humble.”
It came as a shock to the local gardening community this winter when Ed died. He had developed a cough the previous summer that would not go away and finally in November, doctors diagnosed him with stage 4 lung cancer. Though doctors suggested treatment, he was never well enough to undergo it and three weeks after his diagnosis, he died at the age of 81.
“Nobody expected it to be that fast,” Edie said. “Monday afternoon he had several people in the room visiting and he sat up, took off his oxygen mask and started laughing and conversing and just being Ed … then Tuesday he was gone.”
After Ed's funeral, Edie and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered in his Chehalis garden and each took a turn spreading a handful of his ashes on his garden. Edie decided for security purposes not to formally announce Ed's passing but the news spread by word of mouth and the Master Gardeners decided they needed to honor his memory in some way. Edie said when she heard of the plans to plant a tree at Borst Park in his memory, she could not have been happier.
“I thought it was fantastic,” Edie said. “I told my daughter if I had my choice I'd bring his ashes and put them in the hole. He loved Borst Park so much.”
