“Do you see the seven Glory of Petaluma rose bushes that stand out there in the snow in this February storm?  They have been my companions for over thirty-five years, and have stood in nine different gardens.”  So Edmund Mead Mills used the American Rose Annual 1917 to introduce American Rose Society (ARS) members to his own garden.  It is from this vivid garden description that we get a true glimpse of the passion of the man who spent his life promoting rose-growing as a means to beautify people’s lives, their communities and the country.  He called it his “Ministry of the Beautiful.”

            He was one of the central figures responsible for transforming the ARS into a support body for rose hobbyists rather than for commercial growers and for setting it on its current course.  Organizing hobbyists into societies as had been done in England, he could see, was the best way to promote love of roses across the entire country.  On the way to his national role, he spent 52 years promoting rose growing in Central New York and instigated several local societies (See companion article).  The longest lasting one, the Syracuse Rose Society (SRS), will next year celebrate its first hundred years of continuous operation by hosting the National Miniature Rose Convention in June 2011.  This seems an important moment to look more closely at this man, Dr. Mills, who appears in many of our historical records merely as “a Methodist minister in Syracuse.”   

Mills’ 1917 article shared his recipe for successful rose growing by quoting “good old Dean Hole [S. Reynolds Hole, Dean of Rochester Cathedral in England] . . .’He who would have beautiful roses in his garden must have them in his heart.  He must love them well and always (1917, p. 72).’”  He was thoroughly aware of Hole’s accomplishments in England:  several books on roses, the first national rose show in 1858 and the National Rose Society in 1876.

His own ministry in New York was leading him down the same path as Dean Hole and many other clergy of past and present whom he listed in another article, “Roses—Clergy—Churches (Mills, 1921).  As a minister, Mills saw the value of people organizing themselves to achieve common goals and to better themselves and their communities.   In 1911, he organized the SRS and was elected its first President.   Two years later is the first record of his contact with the ARS.

American Rose Society

            In 1913 the ARS, a 21-year-old organization of professional rose growers, was debating whether local horticultural and rose societies should join their organization.  Its Board divided over the inclusion of non-professionals.    We can assume that Dr. Mills was probably responsible for much of the pressure to open its membership.  Although he had no official role within ARS until 1916, a search of ARS records by Dr. R. C. Allen (1985) revealed that Dr. Mills had been present on December 8, 1913, just before a vote of the Board on whether to accept Affiliate Members.  The vote was affirmative and possibly could have been swayed by the President’s conference with Dr. Mills shortly before the meeting.

              The following year, on May 9, 1914, Dr. Mills applied for affiliate membership for all 300 SRS members.  The SRS thus became the first local rose organization to join the ARS.   SRS was probably larger than ARS at that time (Allen, 1985).

            ARS President Robert Pyle was a nurseryman who saw the potential of an organization of amateur rosarians (Allen, 1992).  When J. Horace McFarland published the first ARS Rose Annual in 1916, he cited a letter from Pyle reporting that foreign rose growers were telling him that most U.S. orders came from Oregon and from Syracuse, New York.  Editor McFarland then introduced two articles about local societies in those locales.  He concluded, “rose societies stimulate rose-growing” and hoped that they would spring up all over the country. 

One article explained why so many rose orders came from Oregon.  Roland G. Gamwell reported that many places in Oregon and Washington had had local rose societies for some time, and those near Puget Sound had even joined together as a Pacific Northwest Rose Society.  But they were still communicating more easily with foreign nurseries than with American sources of support.  Gamwell saw the value of bringing these local societies into the ARS to facilitate communication with U.S. growers both commercial and amateur.

            The other article explained all the rose orders coming from Syracuse.  It was by Dr. Mills entitled “What an Amateur Rose Society Can Do for a City or Community (Mills, 1916).”   It emphasized the importance of amateur rose growing to expand interest in roses.   Teaching people to love and grow roses would result in longer, happier lives and more beautiful, harmonious communities, Mills wrote.  He followed with details about educating novices to find the right plants for their climate and location and proper care to prevent lack of discouragement and failure.  Publicity, rose shows, community gardens plus continued expansion of educational resources would all serve to develop love for roses in the community.  One cautionary detail noted a local society’s role in helping members choose reputable nursery sources for their purchases, avoiding “careless clerks in the department stores where roses are sold” and “the wiles and blandishments of traveling agents who know nothing about roses.’  The article made apparent local societies’ potential for expanding consumer demand for nursery-supplied plants, and this must have impressed the professional growers in the young ARS.

ARS in Transition

            By 1916, Dr. Mills was an honorary vice president of ARS, probably because officers were still required to be professionals.  For eight years, the Annuals show him first of four or five varying (and unalphabetized) lists of honorary vice presidents.  During these early years, the florists and nursery men were beginning to notice that amateur growers contributed the enthusiastic organizational and educational skills that could lead to a much wider demand for their products.  Indeed, Edmund M. Mills exemplified these skills in such abundance that Editor McFarland repeatedly referred to him as “the American Dean Hole.” Together, the two men, McFarland, through the publication of the ARS Rose Annuals beginning in 1916 and Mills, the persuasive and energetic promoter of amateur rose growing in America, turned the ARS into the organization we know today, supporting rose lovers all over the country.    

            According to Dr. Allen’s 1992 account of ARS’ first century, the 1920s was a decade of growth, service, and consolidation.  With the support of President Pyle, amateur rosarians were beginning to outnumber commercial growers; and by 1920-22, Dr. Mills was listed as a member of the Executive Committee, as well as honorary vice president.

            In his 1921 article cited above, Mills made the case for the value of expanding the ARS to include amateurs by noting what Dean Hole had accomplished:  “Until within the past five years the ARS has done little to encourage and help the amateur.  On the contrary, the National Rose Society of England, from the days of Reynolds Hole, has helped organize the amateurs into local societies, and has disseminated rose information.  Over there, too, the men in trade, growers of cut-flowers and rose bushes, have been wiser in their day and generation than some of their brethren in America.  With some, love of the rose is a natural taste; with others, it is an acquired taste.  Gentlemen of the Trade, the best way to make a large market for cut-flowers and plants is to increase the number of those who want the things you have to sell.  The amateur rosarian is your advance agent, and though unpaid, is not to be regarded as a negligible quantity.  He has no desire to manage your business, but wisdom and fair play suggest that your relation to him and regard for him should be on some other basis than that of the ‘’loaves and fishes’” (Mills, 1921,p. 22).

14^th President of ARS

By 1923, Mills had been elected the 14^th President of the ARS, its first amateur rose grower to take the helm.  In his presidential message to members, he advocated making America great through making her “good and lovely” . . .  “with cities that abound in beauty spots, ‘gardens of delight.’”  Then, because “world fraternities make for world peace,” he envisioned a worldwide rose society.  On a more practical level, he exhorted the society to double its membership in the following year and spoke of what local societies and individuals could do to spread the word about roses (Mills, 1924a)   By the next year, membership had not doubled, but was an impressive 3708.  The 1925 Rose Annual was the largest yet issued, 208 pages.

            J. Horace McFarland introduced ARS readers of the 1924 Rose Annual to their new president with these words:  “Well into his seventy-sixth year, Edmund M. Mills, D.D., Litt.D., has not abated the activities which have made his stirring career an admiration and a despair to his friends. . . . he considers the rose, that great gift of the Creator to the created, as a part of his religion.  To those who know him best, he seems to be the American Dean Hole, and more.”

            Over the years when he was active in the ARS, five more of his articles appeared in the Rose Annuals (1918, 1920, 1924b, 1925a, 1925b).  The last two were on topics close to his heart:  roses in poetry and a church service to celebrate the rose.  After his first retirement year in California, Mills submitted the report,   “The Land of Enchantment:  Some of Its Rose Gardens, Rosarians, and Roses” (Mills, 1927).   Following passionate descriptions of many gardens up and down the coast, Mills couldn’t help pointing out that “the great need of California rosarians is an efficient state organization with sectional sub-organizations” to support the huge population increase he expected by 1950,  when, he predicted, “there will be 250 miles of rose gardens (Mills, 1927, p. 26).”

In July 1928, he celebrated his 80^th birthday in Santa Ana, CA, at a party given by the Sunday School class he taught there.  The class gave him 80 Premier roses from Amling Brothers florist and a purse of $80.  According to the newspaper report of the affair, “Dr. Mills has established an exceptionally fine private rose garden at his home and is in close touch with the rose fanciers on the Pacific coast.”  He continued as an ARS Consulting Rosarian and was visited several times there by McFarland. 

            In early 1933 he suffered two strokes and was critically ill for several weeks in February.  Syracuse newspapers reported his death at age 85 on March 15, 1933.  He was survived in California by his wife Sadie, three sisters, and two brothers, and buried in Fair Haven Cemetery, Santa Ana, CA.

            The great horticulturist Liberty Hyde Bailey wrote of him:  “It was good to know Edmund M. Mills. . . . In his presence one felt friendly and released; worries subsided. . . I came to know him first as a rosarian, and then to look for him at meetings, to share his presence, and to be reinforced of faith in the goodness of the world (McFarland, 1934, p. 115).

            McFarland reminisced:  “What a man was Dr. Mills!  As the Editor writes, he holds in his hand a snapshot, on the margin of which are the words ‘Yours swimmingly,’ the picture being the head of the otherwise submerged clergyman, rose society president and organizer, in the midst of a lake!  What a cheery man he was!  The Editor recalls an occasion …which, as Dr. Mills and the late William C. Egan were brought together, ran into a story-telling bout which lasted all of one summer day. . . .One memorable winter when he was snowbound in one of the communities over which his church activities presided, he spent the hours of enforced confinement in organizing a rose society.  Always he wanted to get rose folks together, for their own good (McFarland, 1934, p.113).”

            In 2011 the Syracuse Rose Society will be 100 years old; the American Rose Society will continue serving amateur rose growers nationwide; and societies around the world will work together to promote love of roses.  Surely we can pronounce Dr. Mills’ Ministry of the Beautiful a resounding success.

 References

Allen, R. C., 1985.  Personal communication to John P. Messerly, July 29, 1985.

Allen, R. C., 1992.  The First Hundred Years.  In 1992 Rose Annual, Russ Anger, Ed., pp. 8-15.

McFarland, J. Horace, 1934.  Mills—Hill—Eisele—Lowell:  Four Great Rose Men Gone.  In American Rose Annual, 1934, McFarland & Stevens, Eds.   Pp. 112-117.

Mills, E. M., 1916.  The Value of Rose Organizations.  In the American Rose Annual, 1916, J. Horace McFarland, Ed.  Pp. 103-107.

Mills, E. M., 1917.  In My Rose Garden.  In the American Rose Annual, 1917, J. Horace McFarland, Ed.  Pp.  71-74.

Mills, E. M., 1918.  Contributor, Shall We Grow Roses in Wartime?:  A Symposium.  In American Rose Annual, 1918, J. H.  McFarland, Ed.  Pp. 9-20.

Mills, E. M., 1920.  Outdoor Rose-Growing as a Recreation.  In the American Rose Annual, 1920, J. H.  McFarland, Ed.  Pp. 17-19.

Mills, E. M., 1921.  Roses—Clergy—Churches.  In the American Rose Annual  1921, J. H. McFarland, Ed.  Pp. 20-24.

Mills, E. M., 1924a.  The President’s Message to the Members (with President’s portrait).  In the American Rose Annual, 1924, J. H. McFarland, Ed.  Pp. 8-10.

Mills, E. M., 1924b.  A Pilgrimage to the Rose-Gardens of the Pilgrims.  In the American Rose Annual, 1924, J. H. Farland, Ed.  Pp. 134-135.

Mills, E. M. 1925a.  The Rose in Poetry with President’s photo).  In the American Rose Annual, 1925, J. H. McFarland, Ed.  Pp. 8-17. 

Mills, E. M., 1925b.  The Sunday Rose Festival:  A New Church Service.  In the American Rose Annual, 1925, J. H. McFarland, Ed.  Pp. 26-30.

Mills, E. M., 1927.  The Land of Enchantment:  Some of Its Rose-Gardens, Rosarians, and Roses.  In the American Rose Annual, 1927, J. H. McFarland, Ed.  Pp. 21-26.