The recently completed mural of Ruth West in downtown Manitowoc is a colorful and meaningful tribute to an avid gardener, patron of the arts and a beloved humanitarian. But many local residents and Lakeshore visitors may not know the story of her life, how she came to call Manitowoc home and about her many gardening, art and civic achievements.

Early Life in New York

Ruth Elizabeth Cronk was born on April 22, 1898 in Hector, Schuyler County, New York, the oldest daughter of Frank and Lucy Cronk. Her father Frank was a farmer.

Ruth and John West on their wedding day in 1932

Ruth grew up in a “somber Quaker home,” as she later recalled, where love and respect for each other and the principles of simplicity, peace, integrity, equality, truth, stewardship, modesty, moderation and the Friends’ emphasis on family and community life which gave women spiritual power were practiced.

Ruth attended a two-year county normal school and taught first grade through first year high school for two years in a rural school. On August 20, 1919, Ruth, age 21, married Edward Morgan St. John, age 33, in Schuyler, New York. Morgan was the son of Henry A. St. John, a prominent civil engineer, and Cynthia Woodward Morgan St. John. Morgan’s mother was a prominent student of the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth and collected all editions of his works.

While Morgan kept busy with his thriving law practice and civic duties, Ruth St. John was also active in the Ithaca community. During these years, she was also an active member of the Young Women’s Hospital Aid, which raised funds to purchase equipment for the Tompkins County Hospital in Ithaca and to provide for the comfort and well-being of its patients. Sewing meetings on the second and fourth Wednesdays were held at her home, as the hospital was always in need of binders, dresser scarfs, baby gowns and towels. In 1924, Ruth was in charge of the June Dance, a charity ball which raised approximately $100 to refurnish the Sitting Room for employees of the Hospital. Ruth served on several committees and as secretary before being elected president in 1924 and 1925, and again in 1932. In a history of the volunteer women’s hospital auxiliary, Ruth is described as “an ardent and enthusiastic promoter of the Aid’s work.”

“Morg” (known by his friends) attended Cornell University and graduated with a law degree in 1913. Morgan was handicapped by polio and had a law office and studio in his home, where he died suddenly on July 21, 1929 of an acute heart attack, leaving Ruth a widow in her early 30s with a large house.

Following Morgan’s death, Ruth rented out the former law office area to student boarders from Cornell University. One of those was mechanical engineering student John Dunham West from Manitowoc, Wisconsin. They fell in love, and eight days after John’s graduation from Cornell, John and Ruth were married on June 28, 1932. They moved to Manitowoc, where John joined his father Charles C. West, president, at the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co. The firm was co-founded in 1902 by C. C. West, Elias Gunnel and Lynford Geer at the former Burger and Burger shipyard, where the conversion from wood into steel shipbuilding and repair was started. Ruth brought along her German Shepard dog.

West of the Lake Residence and Gardens

The “Shoe Box Estate” was completed in 1934

Once in her new hometown, Ruth and John West soon began plans to build a small, modern, concrete and steel house on a barren tract of land on the northeast side of Manitowoc along Lake Michigan. The idea of building a simple, boxlike, one-story, flat-roofed home came from a visit by the Wests to the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago. The Wests borrowed heavily from the International Style and Cubic architectural design palette for designing their home, which consisted of four main connecting blocks (living room, kitchen, bedroom and bath) and an attached two-bay garage with overhead doors. Basement rooms featured a laundry, workshop, utilities and fruit/vegetable storage. Locals dubbed the little house, completed in 1934, “The Shoe Box Estate.”

The Wests were proud of their comfortable and contemporary geometric structure and in 1938 received a Better Homes & Gardens Certificate of Merit for their kitchen design in the popular magazine’s home improvement contest.

Six additions designed by John and Ruth West were built at their residence between 1937 and 1967. They include a library/plant room/tool room (1937), sun porch (1940 or 1941), a new living room / guest bedroom & bath / powder room / closet / entrance / hall (1952), a new garage (1956), carport (1965) and greenhouse off the guest room (1967). The Medusa cement walls of the house were initially painted white. By 1952, the exterior color of the house was coral pink. In 1957, the house was painted robin egg blue, which harmonized with the changing colors of the sky and lake. For the last 50 years, the house has remained white.

In April 1934, as the house was being built, Ruth began to transform the barren property along the lake into a beautiful and colorful landscape of gardens with a wide variety of flowers and plants, decorative planters, hanging baskets, benches, birdbaths, statuary, expansive lawns, flowering trees and wind breaks. As her gardener William Mueller spaded every foot of dirt, Ruth followed on her knees with a basket shaking out the matted roots of quack grass and thistle. The soil was clay and it took nine years to complete the lawns.

By the autumn of 1934, Ruth admits she “had become addicted to the cause of gardening – a hopeless case!”

By 1960, the entire six acres at West of the Lake was completely relandscaped with twelve large garden areas framed by beautiful and carefully groomed lawns and trees. That year The Milwaukee Journal declared West of the Lake “the largest and most elaborate privately owned garden in Wisconsin.”

The gardens were truly an extension of Ruth’s interest in the visual arts, which reflected her acute awareness of and attention to color, composition, form, proportion and texture. Ruth was ever eager to try new things in her gardens and flower arrangements. She experimented often in growing and planting new varieties of begonias, roses and other plants and designing beds, including a Japanese garden. John’s photographs and slides of Ruth’s gardens attest to his loving support and devotion to her throughout their lives.

Over the years several greenhouses and storage buildings were built on the property to grow plants and to store wheelbarrows, tools, equipment and supplies for maintaining the garden beds and lawns. The West’s first greenhouse, a small glass enclosure built in 1942, no longer exists. A gardener’s garage/storage building/greenhouse (known as the ‘barn’), designed by John D. West and constructed in 1950, remains today on the property. A modern greenhouse addition was built on the north side of the barn in 1991.

Girl Scouts Gardening

Ruth West began her lifelong interest and involvement in gardening in 1934 when she started laying out gardens around her new contemporary home at West of the Lake on Lake Michigan. During these early years, Ruth’s passion for gardening was already being shared with other gardeners and groups, including the Girl Scout Council in Manitowoc.

In April and May 1937, Ruth taught a gardening class for a group of 20 girls from eight troops interested in becoming gardeners and having gardens of their own in back yards that summer, helping them earn scout gardener and garden flower finder badges. Under Ruth’s guidance, the Scouts met at the public library to learn how to plan and plant a garden, order from seed catalogs and press flowers. In August 1937, the program concluded with scouts showing flower arrangements with their homegrown garden flowers at the Manitowoc County Fair.

Ruth’s involvement with local Girl Scouts went beyond the classroom and home gardens. In 1940, she scripted a 15-minute garden talk with scouts that aired on WOMT radio station in Manitowoc. The program consisted of a scout asking, “What is the best way to prepare the soil for a garden?,” followed by an informative explanation by her.

In 1944, Ruth West served on the Manitowoc Girl Scout Council, which at this time had 610 girls enrolled in the organization.

Local Garden Clubs

Ruth West entertained Wisconsin Garden Club members at her home, West of the Lake, after the state flower show on June 23, 1953

After arriving in Manitowoc in 1934, Ruth West became an active member of several local garden clubs. One of the first clubs she joined was the Manitowoc Garden Study Club, organized in 1938 as a study group of the American Association of University Women. By 1942, she was vice president and program chairman of the club and attended the state garden club convention in Milwaukee that fall. As program chairman, she designed the club’s 1942-1943 yearbook, which featured a photograph of lilac trees taken by her on the cover. In December 1945, Ruth instructed members on the making of Christmas wreaths for the chapel at Camp McCoy, the U.S. Army’s training center between Sparta and Tomah, Wisconsin.

As a charter member of the Manitowoc Garden Study Club, Ruth became “a great inspiration in all of the club’s undertakings through the years.” She served on committees, gave presentations at meetings and was actively involved in flower shows, flower arranging workshops and civic beautification projects sponsored by the club. In 1976, one member commented, Ruth West “has been a fairy garden mother to garden club members and the citizens of Manitowoc.”

In 1944, Ruth was one of 49 charter members of the Manitowoc Garden Club organized that year. She served as president in 1952. During her lifetime of active membership, Ruth gave several presentations on gardening, flower arranging and table setting at club meetings, which were often held at her home in conjunction with a garden tea, potluck supper or Christmas party.

According to Manitowoc Garden Club records and year books, Ruth’s talks and demonstrations covered a variety of helpful information and practical topics such as “Tulips” and “Day Lilies” (1944), “Daffodils” (1952), “Table Settings” (1958), “How Shall We Fertilize?” (1960), “Putting Your Garden To Sleep” (1974) and “Fun with Geraniums” (1984), among others.

In 1945, through Ruth’s leadership and inspiration, the club held its first of many juried flower shows in Manitowoc. The “Flowers for the Bride” themed show received an award of merit from the National Council of State Garden Clubs – the first national award ever made to a garden club in Manitowoc County.

With guidance, support and encouragement, Ruth also met with local women wishing to form other garden clubs such as The Twenty Gardeners of Manitowoc and the Cool City Garden Club of Two Rivers, both organized in 1958. She also supported the formation of junior garden clubs such as the Manitowoc Federation of Junior Gardeners (1947) and the Junior Sprouts (1965), sponsored by The Twenty Gardeners.

In 1963, under Ruth’s direction, the Happiness Garden Club was organized for patients at the Manitowoc County Hospital. The “green thumb” therapy program had been instituted about five years before by the Manitowoc Garden Club, Manitowoc Garden Study Club and The Twenty Gardeners. The clubs provided a small greenhouse where residents at the hospital were able to work with flowers in happy harmony with garden club members. Club meetings were run by patients who wrote their own publicity and cleaned the greenhouse. Ruth often presented programs on plant care for patients at the greenhouse. In 1964, hospital patients visited several area gardens and attended a picnic at West of the Lake.

District Garden Club

Ruth West served as president of the Sheboygan District of the Wisconsin Garden Club Federation in 1943 and 1944. Following her first election as District president, the Manitowoc Herald-Times commented, Mrs. West was “fitted for the office to which she was elected. Her gardens and lawn are the result of her own planning and work. She proudly acclaims that she is a real ‘dirt gardener.’ From early spring until late fall she can be found somewhere in her spacious grounds, directing and working at the planting, transplanting, cultivation or even removal of an entire garden.” The local newspaper added, West of the Lake “is one of the show places of the locality.”

During Ruth West’s terms as president, she attended meetings throughout the district and state and frequently gave talks on gardening and other related topics. She encouraged women to join a garden club to learn about flowers, shrubs, plants and trees and the enjoyment beauty brings to one’s home. As district president, she was instrumental in organizing the Manitowoc Garden Club in 1944. During her welcome address, Ruth said, “few people stop to realize how every home and each garden help to make Wisconsin a state of beauty of which we are all proud.”

On October 6, 1944, Ruth was one of the principal speakers at the state garden club federation’s annual meeting at the Astor Hotel in Milwaukee. The banquet included her illustrated presentation “Spring Gardens with Tulips” and a round table discussion on “Roadside Beautification for Postwar Planning” led by the state highway commission.

While Sheboygan District president and in the following decades, Ruth West generously devoted her time and talents to district-sponsored garden projects and activities, many of which occurred at her contemporary home and spacious gardens in Manitowoc.

In March 1944, Ruth entertained district members from Sheboygan, Kohler, Plymouth, Port Washington, West Bend and Manitowoc at an afternoon tea at West of the Lake following a morning meeting and luncheon in Manitowoc. In May 1957, following the District’s annual spring meeting at the Branch River County Club, the afternoon program included a tour of gardens at the home of Mrs. West. In July 1958, Ruth West hosted a garden tour open to the public to raise funds to retire the remaining debt of the Sheboygan Indian Mound Park established by garden clubs of the Sheboygan District. In July 1960, West of the Lake was one of seven gardens in the Manitowoc area featured in the Sheboygan District’s third annual “Round Robin” garden tour. Visitors came to see 5,000 rose bushes, perennials, geraniums, begonias and other summer flowers, and to stay for tea.

Ruth West’s passion for flower shows resulted in her receiving many awards. In May 1947, her design for a memorial altar at the state flower show in Wauwatosa received an outstanding award from The National Council of State Garden Clubs. Later that year, Ruth was named judging school chairman for the Sheboygan District. During the 1950s and 1960s Ruth was general chairman of District flower shows at St. Boniface School Hall in Manitowoc where her flower arrangements and table settings often received first prize and special mention.

State and National Garden Clubs

In 1946, Ruth West was elected president of the Wisconsin Garden Club Federation, having served as second vice president in 1944-1945 and first vice-president in 1945-1946.

During her term as WGCF president in 1946-1947, she started the magazine Wisconsin Gardens and the National Council Flower Show Schools. In 1947, she attended the National Council of State Garden Clubs convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1949 and 1950, she was editor of the Federation’s publication and also co-edited the first “Handbook for Flower Show Schools” published as a pamphlet to aid in standardizing judging schools. In 1956, Ruth was State Horticulture Chairman and wrote ‘Garden-Wise’ articles for the magazine.

During her president’s report in 1947 at the 20th annual state convention at Lake Geneva, Ruth commented, “Federation matters have always held precedent over all other activities of my busy life for the past year and have caused many personal sacrifices which have been happily made in the hope of serving the cause well.”

Following her service as a state officer, Ruth West continued her work with WGCF, giving flower and table settings demonstrations and workshops, hosting events and attending annual state conventions. In 1952, Ruth was one of the honored guests at the silver jubilee banquet of the WGCF at the Loraine Hotel in Madison. In 1957, Ruth established a Horticulture Award to be presented annually to a garden club having the most outstanding horticulture program. In 1963, she entertained state officers, delegates and guests at an afternoon tea and tour of her gardens on the last day of the state convention in Manitowoc.

In 1975, Ruth was co-chairman of the state convention, hosted by garden clubs of the Sheboygan District, at the Fox Hills Inn and Country Club, Mishicot. Besides welcoming the gardeners, she was chairman of the reception decor and staging and properties committees and provided favors for the luncheon as well as booklets of gardening poems and corsages for the convention. A pre-convention meeting was held at her home.

In 1953, Ruth was hostess of local arrangements for a three-day state flower show school sponsored by the WGCF at the Manitowoc Vocational School. The course was the last of five required for certification as an accredited flower show judge. Following the final session of lectures and demonstrations on landscape design, horticulture, flower and table arrangement, and planning flower shows, nearly 100 local and out of town garden club members attended an afternoon tea at West of the Lake.

Ruth West ’s gardening achievements were widely recognized at the state and national level. In 1961, she received a state award in a newly created category for extraordinary effort in horticultural work and gardening from the Wisconsin Garden Club Federation. On September 16, 1964 Ruth received the first Lydia Shafer Memorial Award (the state club’s highest award) for “special achievement in gardening and sharing it with others.” A special achievement award for outstanding contributions though creative horticulture was received in 1967. The following year, Ruth was the first recipient of The Wisconsin Garden Club Federation Award for exceptional and outstanding accomplishment that advanced WGCF objectives.

In 1962, Ruth West received a Horticulture Achievement Award from the National Council of State Garden Clubs. In 1965, Ruth was awarded a special national achievement award for her outstanding garden club work and for the landscaping and development of West of the Lake.

Garden Talks and Lectures

During the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Ruth West traveled widely across Wisconsin and the Midwest giving illustrated lectures and demonstrations on gardening, horticulture, flower arrangements, table setting and the home to garden and woman’s clubs, church groups and civic organizations. By this time, Ruth was a widely known gardening expert and gave hundreds of presentations to garden clubs, groups and organizations.

While many of Ruth’s presentations were for local garden clubs and organizations in the Manitowoc-Two Rivers area, several of her talks were given to groups in Appleton, Cable, De Pere, Edgerton, Francis Creek, Green Bay, Kenosha, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, Neenah, Oshkosh, Racine, Sheboygan, West Salem and Wisconsin Rapids. She also traveled out of state to Chicago, Des Plaines, Freeport, Kankakee, Oak Park and Rockford, Illinois; and Grand Rapids and Muskegon, Michigan. In November 1953, Ruth traveled to her hometown of Ithaca, New York to present “The Story of West of the Lake” to the Garden Club of Ithaca.

Ruth had brochures printed that featured her photograph and descriptions of two lectures that she offered. Lecture 1, ‘The Story of West of the Lake,’ was a “first-hand account of her experience in developing a six-acre tract of waste land into one of Wisconsin’s most beautiful small estates.” The story was illustrated with 250 colored slides showing 12 garden areas with 20,000 tulips in early spring and other flowers in bloom during the summer.

Lecture 2, ‘The Spirit of a House,’ was “Mrs. West’s formula for the planning of a distinctive house by basing one’s work on the seven elements of visual design.” According to Ruth, they included line, direction, shape, proportion, texture, value and color. The lecture presented her ideas to “take the guess work out of the task of decorating a room, setting a table, arranging flowers or any other phrase of creative planning in a house.” No lectures were possible from May 1 to September 1 as these were the busy months when Ruth was in her gardens and hosting tulip and rose teas and garden tours.

On September 30, 1955 Ruth West appeared on Beaulah Donohue’s television show “Women’s World” on WTMJ-TV, Channel 4, Milwaukee, to talk about flower bulbs, corms and tubers.

On October 13, 1965, while setting up equipment for an illustrated talk on ‘The Story of West of the Lake’ to the De Pere Woman’s Club, Ruth West fell and broke her wrist. She was taken to a doctor who put her arm in a splint and sling. Ruth, the ever enthusiastic gardener, returned and gave her presentation to the group as planned. She then hurried home to her gardens as she had 750 pansy plants to set out.

Besides garden clubs, homemakers, church guilds and women’s groups, Ruth West was sometimes asked to be a guest speaker at men’s organizations. In 1951, Ruth spoke to the Two Rivers Rotary Club, her “first experience addressing an organization of gentlemen.” In 1967, she showed slides and told “The Story of West of the Lake” to the Milwaukee County Men’s Garden Club.

Tulip Teas: 1938-1966

In 1938, the first tulip tea and garden tour was held at West of the Lake as a private benefit to raise funds for the St. Elizabeth’s Guild at St. James Episcopal Church, where Ruth West was an active member of the Manitowoc congregation and treasurer of the Guild. The tea was attended by 37 church friends and there were less than 50 tulips in bloom that year.

On Sunday, June 4, 1939, Ruth and John West opened their home and gardens for what would become the first of 28 annual tulip teas open to the public. That year more than 300 persons paid 25¢ to attend the afternoon tea and admire the gardens, which now featured 7,000 tulips. Cookies and refreshments were served in the West’s garage, carpeted for the occasion. Guests were invited to tour the Wests’ lakeshore home, even John’s workshop in the basement.

For nearly three decades, the tulip tea was held the first Sunday of June unless unpredictable spring weather along the lakeshore required it to be postponed or canceled. Cool weather or rain caused three garden events (in 1945, 1950 and 1961) to be postponed one week. In 1958, it was moved up a week due to high winds and warm, dry weather. Two teas were cancelled – one by storm damage in 1943 and another in 1964 by warm weather, which caused tulips to bloom early.

During World War II, while thousands of workers at the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company were building 28 submarines for the U.S. Navy and other area businesses were manufacturing materiel for the war effort, the annual tulip tea continued at the West home. News of the event appeared in the Keel Block, published monthly for employees at the shipyard.

Initially, funds raised were used by St. James to landscape church grounds and repair stained glass windows. Profits in 1954 went to the organ fund. By 1961, the teas were sponsored by the Federated Garden Clubs in Manitowoc. Members of the Manitowoc Garden Club and Manitowoc Garden Study Club (of which Ruth was a member) and The Twenty Gardeners acted as guides and served refreshments. Proceeds from the 1962 and 1963 teas were used to fund a greenhouse and garden therapy program at the Manitowoc County Hospital, a joint project of the Manitowoc garden clubs.

By the 1960s, the annual tulip tea and garden tour at West of the Lake was a local tradition and ‘the social event,’ drawing nearly 2,000 visitors from the area, state and region each year.

The last public tulip tea was held by Ruth West in 1966. A one dollar donation was requested for community beautification projects. In an interview with The Milwaukee Journal, Ruth, age 68, explained that she would miss the tea, but it was just too much work for her and her gardeners (first Bill Mueller, then Eugene Burish) to dig up, store and sort as many as 30,000 tulip bulbs each year. She added, “Perhaps I’ll open my garden for people to see the roses instead.”

In 1967, the City of Manitowoc proclaimed the tulip the city’s official flower in honor of Ruth West.

The West Legacy

Ruth West’s interest in the arts (particularly abstract art) was a natural outgrowth of her garden work, where she learned the practical application of art principles. She began collecting Wisconsin art in 1966, while redecorating a hallway at home. She purchased an inexpensive watercolor painting at a local art fair, and later chuckled it was “Cheaper than buying new wallpaper.”

After 35 years of gardening and 30 years of annual tulip teas, Ruth West was ready for a new challenge. Her passion for public service and support of the visual arts, initially through The Little Gallery and later at the Rahr-West Art Museum in Manitowoc, is noteworthy. She served on the Rahr-West Art Museum Board of Directors continuously from 1969 to 1989, and chaired the Board from 1972 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1985.

Ruth West was instrumental in having the Joseph Vilas, Jr. House (home of the art museum) listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 29, 1977. The Victorian-style mansion, designed by Milwaukee architects George Ferry and Alfred Clas, was built between 1891 and 1893 at 610 N. Eighth Street at Park Street. In 1910, Reinhardt Rahr moved into the house with his family. The Rahr family donated the stately home to the City of Manitowoc for use as a public museum and civic center in 1941.

John and Ruth West personally funded the construction of two exhibition wings at the art museum. The Ruth West Gallery opened on November 1, 1975, while the John D. West Gallery was dedicated on September 14, 1986. The Wests also purchased about 150 works of art for the permanent collection.

Ruth’s final gift to the museum was a Georgia O’Keeffe oil painting entitled “Birch and Pine Tree No. 2,” painted in 1925. The presentation was made six weeks before her death at age 92 on October 30, 1990, eleven months after the death of her husband John. Several tributes for Mrs. West appeared in the local newspaper. On Sunday, November 11, 1990, a memorial tribute for Ruth West was held at the Rahr-West Art Museum.

In 1982, Ruth West’s biography, written by Dolly Stokes, was published in Wisconsin Women: A Gifted Heritage by the American Association of University Women in recognition of her outstanding commitments to the Manitowoc community. Ruth received the 1983 Governor’s Citation for Personal Service in Support of the Arts from the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts Board. In 2014, Ruth West was posthumously awarded a Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award by the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA), Wisconsin Visual Artists and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.

Today, the former West residence and West of the Lake Gardens are owned and operated by the Ruth St. John and John Dunham West Foundation, Inc. (established by the Wests in 1957). The private gardens are open to the public at no charge. The colorful gardens and well-manicured grounds are adeptly maintained in the spirit of Ruth West by a professional and seasonal staff of gardeners.

Ruth St. John West: Gardener, Art Patron, Humanitarian

A New Type of Performance - Sporting Events in Manitowoc Theatres

Rockwood's beginnings come from 2 companies