Ms. Betty

Gardener Profile by Sue Pierre

The Jackie Robinson Community Garden sits at the corner of E 122^nd and Park Ave. Like other older community gardens, it shows it ages with the wear of its shed, the dust coming up from the worn, dry ground, the declining upkeep suggesting an aging leader. As Ricky and I neared it, I began to accept the first disappointment of the day: a locked garden.  Before picking up our box of scales and heading east, I made a call to Betty Gaether.  Betty was half way down the stairs of her building before I could finish saying we were right outside the garden. What followed was to me a clear demonstration of the deep social implications of community gardens, not just in that they produce food, but that they can stem social problems and work as nexuses for neighborhood solidarity and hope.

Ms. Betty Gaether, a 71 year old African American woman with watery-gray eyes and dark, radiant skin, does not hesitate to tell visitors everything about her garden.  Her garden, however, is very much an extension of herself, and her candor is therefore a passport to an entire lifetime. Ms. Betty started the Jackie Robinson garden around what I would estimate is 50 years ago, but don’t quote me on that. The idea came to her through a mixture of peer pressure and divine intervention. Her god mother, an important African American community leader in Harlem, was dying of cancer and implored Betty to go forth with the creation of a garden, pursue grant money, and make something grow in a declining community. She also said that a voice, that of God, told her to start a garden and push crime out of her neighborhood and despite her trepidation, Ms. Betty found herself trusting the voice.

Among myriad stories that seemed to melt together in the hot afternoon sun, Ms. Betty related to us her success in driving prostitutes and drugs dealers from her vacant lot on her own, having to fight the city for that land, and taking crime into her own hands when gangs infringed on her territory. My personal favorite was that of an undercover mission to apprehend dealers who lied to Ms. Betty, claiming they were selling computers near her garden. Somewhat scorned and not in a position to allow a takeover of her neighborhood space, Betty Gaether saw fit that a police sting mission should go down at Jackie Robinson. Her garden has seen mass arrests, assassination attempts, and fights, good against evil, on behalf of the neighborhood.  Rest assured, though, that her garden has had the best barbeques and jazz concerts, and that the same prostitutes that were admonished about lives of crime and heartache have come back to thank Ms. Betty with college degrees.

All of this and more was explained to Ricky and me within thirty minutes, but Ms. Betty’s voice maintained a tinge of solemnity throughout. Her pride in the garden was mostly retrospective, and her current feelings seemed more wistful. “I’m old now; I can’t get grants no more.” If not Betty, then whom? The older generation of heroes who saved entire neighborhoods through actual sweat, blood, tears and soil have met a formidable wall barring their ability. What happens, then, to all of the gardens, and their respective communities, that won’t have a knowledgeable leader to write grants, attend meetings and organize in another 20 years? Perhaps this is where the work of FC comes in. Maybe we are not solely data collectors but conduits for ability, funneling knowledge into the wells of potential that are younger generations. What happens to the neighborhood after a dynamic and brave woman like Ms. Betty isn’t around? I think the answer may be up to people who care about New York’s community gardens; people like us.

Photos courtesy of Ms. Betty