Interview with longtime members

Teckla Cox

Interview led by Bronwen Souders February 8, 2017

Teckie announced that her birthday is 12/12/25

When asked who was president when she got into the club, she suggested we go to Balch library if we wanted to find out who was in the club and who was president.

She joined the Leesburg Garden Club in 1958. In front of our handbook, the interviewer found Mrs. Frank Moss as president that year; She was the rector's wife (St. James); after her came Mrs. Crane.

Her whole family was in Michigan, but came to Loudoun. We came to Washington during WWII and my father worked in the government although he had been an investment banker. So, we moved to DC and my father had a good friend, a Captain Foster who lived in Waterford. We would come out to see them; they had a house in Waterford and Washington. They had a daughter and we both went to the Madeira School so I was happy. I knew Bea Foster. Bea's father was a renewed physicist and taught at the Naval Academy. He discovered the speed of light. Barbara, another daughter and I were friends and had been until now but, unfortunately, no Christmas card this year. We used to meet every year in the spring for lunch. She moved to Reston when she was married. She could be dead. I will wait for next Madeira bulletin.

Anyway, I got to know the Chamberlins through the Fosters and we became quite familiar with Waterford before we moved here. I personally had no desire to move there and no idea my parents were thinking of it. I hoped we would go back to Grosse Point where my friends were. The war ended and my parents, without consulting me and my sister, decided we would stay in the area and bought farm outside of Waterford. I was furious. My sister was a lot younger; Darcy. I wanted to go back to what I knew. There weren't people my age in Waterford; I stayed away as much as I could by going to visit college friends. I went to Vassar so I had friends in NY, Phillie, other parts of Pennsylvania. From Madeira, I had friends in Boston.

But then, I married someone local. My sister when she was in college meet someone she ultimately married who had a good friend in Waterford. And so, one night, Darcy had her friend and his guest for dinner and she also invited Tommy Cox because he had been roommate of one of the friends in boarding school; this was 1953, maybe. I was in my 20’s.

I married in 1954 and joined the Leesburg Garden Club in 1958. In 1955 I went to Germany and lived there and came back and I guess by the end of 1956; I almost lived there two years. Tommy was drafted and stationed in Nuremburg. I came back. My mother was in the Club; Tommy's grandmother was one of the earliest members, so what could they do but take me in. My grandmother on mother's side; she was Lily Rust. She married an Edwards. Hilbert was my maiden name.

When I joined the Leesburg Garden Club, it was pretty much the same as now; yes, exactly the same. They kept changing the way they voted for new members; initially the whole club voted. But people got upset, too many opinions. I was legacy so Mrs. Will Rust proposed me, they would be hard pressed not to take me. Tommy' grandmother was one of the early members.

All of the original members were all around when I joined and I remember them. Page McLaughlin was one I did know. the others were probably Associate members.

Meetings were all afternoon teas, never heard of morning coffee, unknown, and lunch was different. People had lunches but not connected to organizations. Always teas. Usually at three o'clock and I remember the year they voted to have it at 2:00, or 3:00 and 4,:00 because it was getting dark and people did not want to drive home in the dark.

The meetings probably didn't last that long. Not particularly short; that's why it was getting dark. We always had a program; same kind of format as now .

When asked about Mrs. Pickens. Teck: Mrs. Pickens and Mrs. Fairfax she noted that Mrs. Fairfax’s chauffeur actually did the cutting down of the billboards. Agnes Harrison was not involved in the billboards. This was in 1940 or 1941. We still have no billboards in Loudoun County. When asked if this had an effect on her joining the Planning Dept, she replied “No”.

I started out as a teacher and taught English at Madeira. Then I got married and, in those days, when you got married you quit working. But I did work then when I was married; but eventually I got divorced and then I had to work. I knew the person who was in charge of personnel at the County and so someone said go talk to her. She asked me if I could type and my father had insisted that I learn to type and take shorthand. I had two friends who went to business school. I was hired as the secretary for Comprehensive Planning. And then I began to find that a little boring. As a teacher I had started as secretary and, then, I told them I was getting bored and I got to teach. I did the same thing at Planning. I went to Virginia Tech at Dulles airport and they had a master's program in Planning. It was kind of spooky because Route 28 was there but there was nothing on it. Driving from the airport to Route 7, if the car broke down there was nowhere to get help. Then I got onto Route 7 and that was not much better. Anyway, then they hired me as a planner. I never finished the master's but got most of it. Enough to satisfy the Planning Department. I quit my master’s programs because I was having problems with my kids and had to spend more time with them. They did not take to the idea of me saying I have homework, go away.

I was a planner for twenty years. I was still able to go to Garden Club, but not very often. I remained on the Board and always managed to get to Board meetings. The trouble with Garden Club because they had these morning meetings and mornings were important for my work. I became parliamentarian and stayed on the Board in that position. Kate Williams was my last president. You need to have someone on the Board who has a knowledge of the past. Now, the parliamentarian doesn't know a damn thing. It wasn't just Roberts Rules but precedent. I wrote it up but I don't think anyone ever read it. I avoided being president. The thing that scared my about being president was you had to appoint people to things, ask them to do things, and I just don't have the nerve to ask people. Too shy to ask.

Agnes was in when I came in; Eeda did not come in until the 70's. Mrs. Peale was in. Mrs. Harrison, not Agnes, but Mrs. Bert Harrison, and Mrs. Winslow Williams.

Always the same number of members. Since I was in it's always been the same. Until they made that stupid mistake of reducing the number of Associates; I told them at the time it was stupid, but, later, they put the number back up.

The Club has been doing public services for years; we have been decorating the Town square forever. The thing they stopped doing was the hospital. We started off during WWII by growing vegetables which the hospital could then cook. And then we also branched off into growing flowers and had a flower bed where the patients could look out and see it. And we also started having flower gardens around the black school in Middleburg; Banneker. Teaching the children how to grow things like Mrs. Obama. And then the Club got rid of Automobile grave yards and a ton of things. More than we do now. And then there was the Billboards. Not just billboards, all signs. In the process of that, in order to do that, Mrs. Pickens learned that there had to be a regulation and that we would have to have a Planning Commission in order to dream up the regulations and pass it on to the Board of Supervisors so she went to the Board of Supervisors for a year asking for a Planning Commission and they paid no attention; some of them slept through it. After a year, they got tired of hearing her so they said you can have your Planning Commission and she was the first Chairman. And then they wrote a sign ordinance. They allowed not very many signs but they decided that where signs should be permitted and how big they could be. With the help of a few men from Richmond who came and helped. And the Board was kind of forced to accept it. The election signs were stopped but not until the 1980’s when we made an exception but they could only be up for certain amount of time and then they had to be down. But I think they are trying to tear the sign ordinance apart now. The person who took the signs down Mary Owen Chatfield-Taylor's brother, Mr. Lyons (member Kassie Kingsley’s uncle). He would go out and pull the signs down but it was illegal for him to do that. So, then the Board made some sort of ruling that they could remove if they were clearly in the public right-of-way and not on private property. Sometime in the 1990’s there was another exception made that they could have bigger signs on bigger buildings which was actually fairly logical. At the same time, the Board gave permission for real estate signs to be put up I think on Friday and down by Sunday night. So, it's been chipped away.

The women of the County were a strong force. The women of the Garden Club of Virginia have a lot of influence. I don't think we thought about it as particularly, we are women, we are powerful. We didn't know we were in the vanguard of the fight. The Leesburg Garden Club began in 1915, the Garden Club of Virginia in 1920. We were not one of the first members of the GCV. Mrs. Page McLaughlin (1915-1924) decided we would join the GCV.

About the Garden Club of Virginia Commonwealth Award that we won for the Douglass Community Center: Yes, I remember that. It was the Peale's (Margaret Peale) who donated the trees and we planted them. We thought that was the end of it but we are stuck with it still. Not sure I would work madly for the Commonwealth Award because we have to continue to take care of it.

Members talked about the little spiral notebook we used to have. For our Handbook. It was printed in green. Then we had the double postcards where you sent back half to RSVP. I think there is a lot of stuff at the Balch library for the GCV Centennial.