Annetta McCrea, Landscaper, 1900

Mrs. Annetta E. (Maxson) McCrea

Utica Saturday Globe, November 1900

 

Annetta (Maxson) McCrea

1858 - 1928

Norwich [Chenango Co., NY]:  Local interest attaches to the recent appointment of Mrs. Annetta E. McCrea as landscape gardener for Lincoln Park, Chicago, she having been a former resident of Norwich when she was known as Miss Nettie Maxson and made her home with her uncle, George W. Sholes. She is a sister of Mrs. A.E. Bradley, of this village, who recently returned from a visit to her in Chicago.

 

Mrs. McCrea was associated with her late husband, who was a landscape gardener, assisting him in perfecting his designs.  Upon his death it came very natural for her to take up his work which she has done with signal success.  She has laid out parks in Milwaukee, St. Paul and Detroit and many of the most beautiful private gardens of Chicago have been arranged by her all show an originality in groupings and selections which raises her work out of the stereotyped lines in which landscape gardening has a tendency to fail. She has traveled extensively and is possessed of wide knowledge of trees and shrubs.

 

In the creation of an ideal park, which Mrs. McCrea intends Lincoln Park will be, she means to set up a standard which eventually will be adopted by all the parks, and if this is done, Chicago will be famous for tis idyllic beauty.  One of her important innovations will be the labelling of the trees and shrubbery, her purpose being to make the park an institution of instruction as well as beauty. She has arranged her plan, she says, without any consideration of cost;  "I will leave cost to the board."

 

One of Mrs. McCrea's hobbies is to have landscape gardening taught in the public schools to those girls and boys who show any adaptability to the work.  Girls, she thinks, are particularly qualified to plan beautiful effects in shrub and plant arrangements.  Mrs. McCrea is petite and of charming personality and is believed to be the first woman in America to adopt landscape gardening as a profession.

 

Note:  For more information about her career see the following:  http://tclf.org/pioneer/annette-mccrea