Dear Friend Sorely Missed

To the Editor:
I read in the newspaper obituaries yesterday of my friend Irma McVey’s death. We met around 2000, after she spoke to the Stone Harbor Garden Club. I quickly realized we had so much in common. We both had our years of association with school libraries and both described ourselves as serious gardeners.
I had begun my big five-year volunteer effort as the Wetlands Institute gardener, so Irma took me under her wing.
She acquainted me with the Delaware Nature Society, the New England Wildflower Society’s Garden in the Woods (later to become a favorite plant hunting ground of mine), the N.J. Audubon Society’s native plant sale, her many Amish friends’ wholesale nurseries and Ellen Epple’s Dias Creek Daylilies; all of which ended up providing the Wetlands Institute with so many wonderful wholesale priced native plants for me to garden – in addition to the many donations from her own large garden (hope some of them have survived).
She drove me for miles around Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey in her SUV piled to the roof with plants. We discovered Chinese restaurants together (we also both loved to eat Chinese food). She became my best garden resource and my true gardening mentor.
Although I never met her family, hearing about them from Irma made it clear to me that she was a caring and loyal daughter, mother, grandmother and sister. She did introduce me to several of her friends and we all shared some pretty good times. The unbelievably strong, generous, warm, funny and fun Irma had a large network of family and friends.
In 2005 I left the Wetlands Institute to their own devices, focusing my time and energy on my own old house and garden. Irma, besides increasing family responsibilities, became more involved with her master gardener volunteer efforts and we gradually drifted apart and lost touch. Naturally, I’d always planned to touch base with her, so I’ll have some serious regrets to deal with on that front.
Other than my husband, Irma was one of the very few people I can honestly say I both love and deeply respect. There just aren’t too many Irmas left. So I need to say to her “God bless you and Godspeed Irma from your old friend, Judy.”
JULIAETTA LAMBERT
Stone Harbor