By Genma Holmes

When Alyssa Peacock Leonard asked me to join her as a fellow garden enthusiast, I was all in because I knew how much she enjoyed serving the community through service projects.

She was a member of several gardening groups. But her desire for me to join her was much more serious than joining a gardening club. At the time, she was looking down the road towards the Diamond Anniversary of the garden club. With many founding members who had earned the title of ancestor, she wanted their legacy to be shared. With a love for gardening projects that served a proud purpose, I remember saying, "Can you imagine the impact of seven decades of storytelling could be? Can you see the power that a beautiful tapestry of history and the love of gardening, woven together, will do for the community? Incredible!" My close friend Phyllis Cain, who had asked me to speak to the club in 2014, was a member as well. Joining would be a grand opportunity to meet others who share a love for gardening.

In previous years, the signature project of the garden club was the Doris Campbell Busby Memorial Garden, named after one of their club presidents, Doris Campbell Busby, the former director of volunteer services at Hubbard Hospital. After Alyssa inducted me into the garden club, I learned that a charter member, Mrs. Hazel Suggs Burley, attended church with Alyssa. Alyssa would often speak of her at other gardening events, and several times on my radio show.

 

I also met Patsy Campbell Petway in the club. I knew of Patsy Petway for many years. We have many mutual relationships. I knew of the various civic organizations, social clubs, and philanthropic circles that Patsy and her husband, Carlton H. Petway, Sr., were part of for decades before his passing. Carlton H. Petway Sr. was a trailblazing attorney in Nashville. The passenger waiting room at Music City Central bears his name as well as many plaques and markers throughout the city of Nashville.

Carlton Petway, second from right, newly appointed assistant to the U.S. attorney, receives congratulations from U.S. District Judges Frank Gray Jr., left, and William E. Miller shortly after taking the oath of office as his wife looks on May 9, 1967. Petway is a former assistant Davidson County public defender.

Dale Ernsberger / The Tennessean

There was a kindred spirit between Patsy and me when we met at a gardening meeting. We are members of The Links, Incorporated, an organization founded in 1946. Patsy, a member of the old guard, would share stories of every planning committee that would have me in stitches. I often found myself in hours-long conversations with Patsy that would include the behind-the-scenes legal maneuvers of court battles during the Civil Rights era, bedrock Black civic organizations that impacted Nashville and beyond, and her deep love for family, especially her sister Doris. I treasured Patsy's never-ending stories.

Hearing Patsy talk about her sister drew me in to want to learn more about Doris's endless acts of kindness and her quiet philanthropy, which family and close friends knew so well. Doris's volunteer work in the community was embedded in her, and she had a way of pulling everyone along to want to make a difference. As I was preparing last year mentally for what I hoped and prayed would be a mind-blowing unveiling of unknown history, I spent hours reading through pages of journals from the garden club at the Tennessee State Library and Archives that included meeting minutes, accounting records that were unquestionable down to the penny, and, most importantly, the love of women who encouraged their community to lift as they climbed through gardening, art, and culture.

In a million years, I would never have thought that decades after Black women gathered in 1951 in Ruth McAlpin's living room, the seeds they planted then would bloom through Doris and Patsy's generation, who love volunteerism. The seeds would become heirloom seeds to civic engagement and bloom again in Davidson County Master Gardeners who are now in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.

With Patsy being a night owl and my workload only allowing me to write during the wee morning, I decided a few months ago I would have a pen on hand when Patsy would give me her midnight hour Nashville history lessons to share with other gardeners.

Military Families

Before marrying a Busby or a Petway, Doris and Patsy were daughters of Emmet C. and Wilma Coffey. Because Mr. Campbell was an engineer for the Navy, the family moved from Nashville during World War II but moved back after the war. After high school, Doris attended Tennessee State A & I. During her senior year in 1954, she was Homecoming Queen and graduated in 1955. She married shortly after college to First Lt. George C. Busby, Jr., who was also a "Meharry Made" dentist.

As her husband served his country, she served beside him. She was highly active in the Officers' Wives Club of the U.S. Army. While the family was living in Italy, where he was stationed in Vicenza, she was commissioner of the Girl Scouts for Italy and Sicily. Doris also worked as a Red Cross volunteer in the American School Clinic and hosted a radio program, "Women's World."

Upon returning to Nashville, Doris became involved in her community. When her husband retired as a Colonel from the U.S. Army Dental Corps, he became a professor of Dentistry at Meharry Medical College, where he served as Director of Dental Clinics.

Doris once again served beside her husband. She became president of the Capital City Dental Auxiliary. The auxiliary members were spouses of members of the Capital City Dental Society, which is an organization of dental professionals promoting oral health equity and community engagement. With a giving heart and a love for people, being director of the volunteer services at Hubbard Hospital was a natural fit for Doris. Upon becoming director, Doris spearheaded the reactivation of the Hubbard Hospital Auxiliary. Hubbard Hospital Auxiliary were volunteers who supported the hospital through fundraising, volunteer work, and community engagement. Members assisted patients, staff, and had dedicated events, health screenings, and outreach programs with the public at large.

 

With Doris's wide-ranging service on non-profit boards, including Florence Crittendon Home for Girls, the Nashville Symphony Guild, Head School Day Nursery, Tennessee Performing Arts Foundation, and Friends of Cheekwood, she knew how to lead and love a team of volunteers. She understood the priceless value of individuals who can bring hands-on power, skill sets, and passion to projects that could be otherwise unattainable without their volunteer hours.

A lifelong volunteer who had engaged in civic organizations like Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the Nashville Chapter (TN) of The Links, Incorporated; League of Women Voters; The Circlets; Cheekwood as a docent; and the Friendship Force International from Nashville visiting Caracas, Venezuela serving others was a requirement in most of them. A natural-born leader, she wore the presidential hat in most of the organizations she was a member of, including Les Presius and the Ardent Gardener Club.

 

Her years of serving with heart and soul set her on course to help lead efforts to keep groups like the Hendersonville Area (TN) Chapter and the Nashville (TN) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, R.H. Boyd Medical Auxiliary, Home and Garden Beautiful Club, Hospital Auxiliary, Faith Unlimited, Nashville Chapter of Girl Friends, Green Thumb Garden Club, Garden Lovers Club, Meharry Wives Club, Linnaeus Garden Club, Ardent Gardeners Garden Club and employees of Meharry Pre-School engaged with Hubbard Hospital. Those garden clubs and civic groups would eventually help with her final act.

Final Act.

Doris earnestly began carving out space in the atrium for a garden. The garden would be a place where families can find tranquility and peace during the hospitalization of a loved one and provide a space for hospital staff and doctors to relax before or after a shift. With a tenacity for not accepting no with a smile, she used her political capital to spearhead the project with the hospital and Meharry. She found buy-in internally and received support from the legion of volunteers and many organizations she helped recruit to be involved at Hubbard Hospital. Many years of tilling the soil reaped a harvest when the hospital eventually laid the concrete for the garden in the late seventies. In the early 80s, the dedication of the garden was a grand affair.

The fruits of her years of advocating for the garden left an incredible mark on the community. The Doris Campbell Busby Memorial Garden stands as a testament to what one person can do to create a lasting impact. Every aspect of her life was a step towards serving others. Many who visited the garden noted that while Master Gardeners worked to deadlines to help make the garden showroom ready for several events during the summer, there was a serene calmness felt throughout the atrium. That calmness made us want to work hard in the blazing heat to free the garden of weeds and overgrowth. Even doctors would come out in their white coats to volunteer. On one occasion, I caught the glaze of Patsy with tears in her eyes as she watched Master Gardeners transplanting Hostas. When I stopped to ask what was wrong, she whispered, "You have no idea how much this means to me. I can feel Doris with us. Smiling."

Slowly, I looked around the garden and saw the work we had put in that day. I looked back at my friend and found myself wiping away tears from my eyes. I could feel the history of all the lives of the women who volunteered in the garden years before me. You can sense the love they had for service. And each other. Although I never met Doris, I could feel her smiling as well.