{"id":1757,"date":"2019-05-29T12:06:22","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T12:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/?page_id=1757"},"modified":"2019-05-29T12:06:22","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T12:06:22","slug":"collier-lodge-garden-an-homage-to-areas-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/?page_id=1757","title":{"rendered":"Collier Lodge Garden an Homage to Area’s History"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Medicine Wheel garden of KVHS Native Gardens<\/p><\/div>\n

Collier Lodge garden an homage to area’s history
\nMay 28, 2019 9:30 AM<\/p>\n

With rocks placed to mark the four directions, Cindy Deardorff stood by a fifth rock in the center.<\/p>\n

With a handful of items in her hand, she leaned over to bless what would soon become a Native American Medicine Wheel garden at Collier Lodge outside of Kouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m blessing the garden with sage, tobacco and sweet grass. These are the three ceremonial herbs,\u201d she said Saturday as she led a small group of volunteers in planting that garden and another called Three Sisters, also in a raised bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is done to dedicate to the native people who walked the spot before us and to pioneers who saw the use in this land. We now know we shouldn\u2019t have drained the marsh. Now we\u2019re going to restore the marsh for future generations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis blessing is for those here and all those who come and see it.\u201d
\nWith that, Deardoff went to each of the directional markers and blessed them individually, coming to the rock for the east last, the one she said was more important because it represents where the sun rises each day.
\n\u201cEvery day we\u2019re going to start anew,\u201d she said. \u201cWith that, we\u2019re going to start working.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the volunteers did, filling out a circle between the directional markers and attending to other details before they could start planting what Deardorff said were plants used for medicine and collected in the wild, \u201calong the marshes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gardens, said Mary Hodson, who with her husband John founded the Kankakee Valley Historical Society, pay homage to the people who lived along the Kankakee River before us, and will serve as an educational living library as well as a harvesting corridor for wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be interesting to see how the garden thrives and changes over the years, as the plants let us know their best placement in the circle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The gardens, said John Hodson, president of the society, have been in the works for several years and while they were put into place last year, the project never really panned out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned from last year what we needed to do differently,\u201d Mary Hodson said, and that included using raised beds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good start to get us on the path that we needed,\u201d John Hodson said.<\/p>\n

The two plots, both 20 feet by 20 feet, will contain plants that were once native to the area. Deardorff, of Kouts, brought along around 40 jars of native seeds she said she\u2019s collected through her travels.<\/p>\n

The Three Sisters garden will contain varieties of corn, beans and squash, what she called \u201cthe three staples\u201d for food. The Medicine Wheel garden will play host to bloodroot, plantain, bee balm, white sage and other medicinal herbs.<\/p>\n

The varietals are all heirloom and some date back to the 1700s, she said.
\nA tax accountant by trade, Deardorff also is a historical reenactor. During those events, each participant picks a specialty, such as weaving or another trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey talked about colonial foods, they talked about pioneer foods, but no one talked about native foods,\u201d she said, adding pumpkins were a Native American crop. \u201cThink of Thanksgiving. We wouldn\u2019t have pumpkin pie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/suburbs\/post-tribune\/ct-ptb-collier-planting-st-0529-story.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Collier Lodge garden an homage to area’s history May 28, 2019 9:30 AM With rocks placed to mark the four directions, Cindy Deardorff stood by a fifth rock in the center. With a handful of items in her hand, she leaned over to bless what would soon become a Native American Medicine Wheel garden at… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":713,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"no-sidebar.php","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1757","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1757\/revisions\/1759"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}