Fannie Mahood Heath

Fannie Mahood Heath (March 5, 1864 - September 29, 1931) was an American gardener and famous for the discovery of growing methods for flowers from around the world, along with producing flower and fruit cultivars of her own. She wrote articles for Nature, Park's Floral, National Geographic, and Botanist magazines on the benefits of growing native plants.

Early life and education

Fannie was born in 1864 in Wykoff, Minnesota to her parents, John and Elizabeth Mahood. Her father had a history of having been involved in the California gold rush and, while he was in the state, learned about the medicinal benefits of plants from the native peoples that lived there. This resulted in the Mahood family having a focus on growing plants and Fannie's grandmother also bequeathed her a plot of land when she was seven to set up a garden. The family moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota in 1880 and it was in 1881 at the age of 17 that she married Frank Heath. They moved to the plains westward of the city and Fannie began creating a forest of trees derived from local species, including willow trees, cottonwoods, and box elders alongside her lilac bushes, in order to act as a shelterbelt.

Career and gardening

After the establishment of the Heath farm, Fannie focused on finding a way to neutralize the high alkalinity of the soil in the region and she attempted to use so by applying vinegar as an acidic countermeasure. It took multiple different attempts and modifications of the soil, but she was eventually able to establish flowerbeds, vegetables, and fruit trees in the area. She also kept up a high amount of letters with horticulturalists around the country in order to obtain new seeds and, while many failed to survive in the soil, she kept extensive notes on her garden experimentation. The flower seeds she was cultivating were also sent out to those she kept in correspondence with and there was quickly a demand for her flowers around the world.

Fannie also kept up with messages to people in other fields and she sent data to publications for such material, including bird migration patterns in the plains to the official biological survey office in Washington D.C.. Her messages to North Dakota State University had her become in contact with O. A. Stevens to learn about the scientific nomenclature of plants and also C. B. Warden for discussions on garden and shelterbelt production in the windy plains. This collaboration would eventually lead to the publication of the bulletin Perennial Flowers for North Dakota Homes with Albert F. Yeager in 1923. An additional independent publication was made by Fannie in 1924 titled Flowers From Snow To Snow On The Dakota Great Plains with a discussion on her 40 years of plant growth research and the hardiness of the 174 plant species that had been tested.

In 1920, she was involved in establishing the National Horticultural Society at the request of Hamilton Traub. The society was officially established in 1922 and Fannie was given the position of vice president. The June meeting in 1922 was hosted at the Heath farm, where Fannie gave a presentation on the topic of "Protection and Beautification of the Home Grounds" and exhibited her methods of how to successfully propagate multiple flowers from different habitats. During the November 1923 meeting of the society, a National Botanical Garden and Herbarium was established in Grand Forks and Fannie donated 250 specimens to its creation. She also joined the Great Plains Horticulture Society in 1925 after being personally asked to be involved. By 1925, the over 100 people that visited a week to see her garden became too much and she ended the public tours. By that point, the only four acres of the Heath farm had more than 450 different species being grown on it. Her planted flowers included species from around the world, including the Asiatic globe flower, the caragana, and a variety of other shrubs from across the region of Manchuria.

Death and legacy

Fannie died, aged 67, on September 29, 1931. She would be honored in the 1933 "Century of Progress" Chicago World's Fair event that had an exhibit on her and her accomplishments, including a name on her descriptive plaque calling her the "flower lady of North Dakota". A black raspberry cultivar she developed would later be named after her in her honor.

A collection of her papers, writings, notes, photographs, and newspaper clippings of her life was donated to the University of North Dakota in 2000 by her daughter, Pearl Heath Frazier, and established as an official collection on her life.

Personal life

During their marriage, Fannie and Frank had two children, a son named Frank and a daughter named Pearl. Her son Frank would die in 1902.

Bibliography

• —; Yeager, Albert F. (1923). Perennial Flowers for North Dakota Homes. North Dakota Agricultural College.
• — (February 1924). "Flowers From Snow To Snow On The Dakota Great Plains". Garden & Home Builder. 38. Doubleday: 224–225.

Further reading

• "The Flower Woman of North Dakota". North Dakota Outdoors. Vol. 8. North Dakota Game and Fish Department. 1945. p. 3.
• "Fannie Heath, Flower Woman of N.D." North Dakota Quarterly. 23: 35–37. 1932.