Lilly's Garden

Lilly Thompson was a third-grader at Forest Avenue Magnet Elementary School in Montgomery, Alabama, when she and other students, including her twin brother, Miles, became interested in the environment and began studying insects, birds, and wildlife. They took a field trip to learn about recycling and began collecting newspapers, cans, and bottles in their neighborhood. The activity expanded into a school-wide drive and the young students formed the Save the Earth Club into which they poured back all the earnings from their recycling project. With the encouragement of the school principal, Maggie Stringer, and the science teacher, Sherry White, and other interested faculty and parents, the Club started a garden. Meanwhile, Lilly grew in confidence, won a science exhibit award, and ran for school office. Brother Miles was her companion and protector. Lilly also developed sickle cell anemia. Her parents, Ann Oldham and Myron Thompson, had to endure the unimaginable pain of losing their beautiful, talented daughter to the ravages of sickle cell. In the year that Lilly died, her fellow sixth-grade students renamed the garden in her memory. For twenty-eight years, Lilly's Garden has been nurtured, expanded, beautified, and transformed into an outdoor classroom. It is a place of peace and tranquility, and students, parents, teachers, and community members go there to enjoy the birds, bees, bugs, trees, and flowers, including Lilly's Smile, a hybridized daylily species named in honor of the little girl who walked among us. Her mother, the author of this lovingly compiled book, wrote stories about Lilly, Miles, and their classmates and collected photographs of the school, the family, and the friends.