Fostoria Ladies Garden Club
June 2, 1996

PIX#1 - Members of the Fostoria Ladies Garden Club put the finishing touches on their planting at Gray Park. Gray Park was the creation of George M. Gray, founder of Gray Printing, who donated it to the city of 1938.

Memorial Day, the day officially set aside to honor those who have died in uniform in the service of the nation, is also the unofficial start of summer. The Fostoria Ladies Garden Club blended the official and unofficial recently in a day long planting of flowers throughout the city.

On Tuesday May 21 Sandy Berrier, Ellen Gatrell (president), Carol Hall, Edie Helms, Josette Larick, Ruthann McEntire, Frances Steinacker, Jean Strong, Sam Ye Youngman and Sonja Zirger put in a full nine to five day to beautify Fostoria.

You might have spotted them downtown where they planted the large flower pots with geraniums, marigolds, vinca vine, spikes, petunias, asparagus fern and pansies. You may have spied them at the mid-block and the City Building brightening the city’s name with red geraniums, dusty miller, yellow marigolds, ageratum and vinca. You perhaps witnessed them adorning the Kaubisch memorial Public Library with spikes, vinca vine and asparagus fern.

You could have watched them at Fountain Cemetery. They decorated the podium in red, white and blue for the memorial Day services with red salvia, dusty miller, ageratum, blue salvia and vinca. The boat was planted with vinca vine, white petunias, spikes, ageratum and geraniums. The fountain is brimming with large and small yellow marigolds.

Finally, you perchance viewed their work at Gray memorial Park which they decked out with red geraniums and yellow marigolds. Pansies were planted in the rock garden.

Historic Gray Park has been the focus of “Mission Possible,” a three year fund raising effort to improve the park and purchase new recreational equipment. Funds are raised through the sale of engraved bricks on the platform next to the George M. Gray memorial stone. Over 175 bricks have been purchased by local businesses, organizations and individuals and the $9,000 raised has gone for the acquisition of spring riders, tetherball units, swings for infants and handicapped persons and other equipment.

Gray Park was the creation of George M. Gray, the founder of Gray Printing Co. Born in Elmore in 1860, Mr. Gray became a printer’s apprentice in Pentwater, Mich. in 1875. Hid family moved to Medina, Ohio in 1879. George attended Oberlin College in 1881 where he met and fell in love with Hannah Andrews. They were married May 28, 1884.

He continued in the art printing business, making a success of himself. He also entered a partnership to publish the Medina News. The printing business and the News were prospering when a fire gutted Gray’s printing plant in 1888. George Gray wasn’t one to be discouraged by setbacks. Armed with money from the insurance settlement and the sale of the Medina News, he cast about for greener pastures. The Carg gas well had put Fostoria on the map and Gray settled here and founded “one of the best equipped establishments for fine art printing in the whole United States,” according to E.R. Root, Gray’s lifelong friend and business associate.

George Gray pursued a variety of interest including travel, photography and landscape gardening. He enjoyed beauty and watching things grow. In 1926 he purchased land east of Vine St. in the center of town north and south of “a sewer creek.” The sewer creek was, of course, the South Branch of the Portage River and the parcel of land basically included what is now the park, the land just north of Gray Park Dr. (Formerly Gordon Rd.) And the area where Holmes School stands.

The land was not impressive. Considered “an old dump,” it also flooded frequently when the Portage overflowed its banks. At those times, people hauled canoes in for a little water recreation. If sufficient standing water froze in winter, it became a skating rink. Gray purchased the entire parcel for $500.

The land was so overgrown and uncared for that the most noteworthy use of it was to field test tanks. That’s right, in 1917, during World War 1, the US Army brought a tank in to see how it would perform on Fostoria’s fiercest terrain.

The first thing Gray did was have a levee built to control and straighten the Portage so the land could be developed. He took a personal hand in landscaping the area. It was not unusual on spring mornings for residents to see the president and founder of Gray Printing wielding a shovel, planting trees and shrubs as he slowly transformed the property from an eyesore into a place resplendent with beautiful, growing things.

The land was much lower than it is today and Gray filled it in with everything from ashes from nearby homes that heated with coal to assorted junk to Model T Ford fenders to fill dirt. Someday an anthropologist might have fun on the sight.

Back in the early 20's the site was known as Lakeview Park. The remains of the foundation of the park building are still visible near Vine St. where the Mission Possible brickwork is laid out. That building was destroyed by fire in 1924.

In 1938 Gray donated the land south of the river to the city as parkland and it has borne his name for many years.

George Gray was an engaged citizen as well as a prosperous businessman. He was active in the YMCA and the library. For more than 50 years he was an energetic member of the First Presbyterian Church, serving as an Elder as well as Sunday School Teacher and Superintendent. He was also a member of the Fostoria Park Board. In 1914 he was the first vice president of the Ohio Printers Federation.

Much of Fostoria’s social life revolved around the Gray home which we know today as the Mann-Hare Funeral Home.

By 1932 a nine hole, par three golf course along with a miniature golf course occupied much of the park. In the midst of the Great Depression, Gray determined that Fostorians and employees of Gray Printing in particular would benefit from economical recreation.

There still exist a couple business cards advertising the opportunity to “Play Golf while in Fostoria at Gray Park Golf Course - A Sporty Mashie Course - In West Part of City - Route 18.” Mashie golf required the use of only a single club, the mashie putter. In May 1936 green fees for a round of sporty mashie golf were 25 cents.

The course had four holes of 110 years, one of 100 yards, one of 75, two of 55 and one of 50 yards. The first tee was near the corner formed by the intersection of the Portage and North Vine. The course skirted the southern edge of the park and followed the bend of the river to the area where the back of St. Wendelin HS now sits. The course then wound its way back west and the ninth green was adjacent to the first tee. The sixth green and seventh tee were on the other side of the “crick.”

Golf wasn’t the only amenity the park had to offer. There was also a shuffleboard court and an archery range.

The name Gray remains closely tied to civic improvement. George M. Gray’s grandson, George A. Gray, also a past president of Gray Printing, is active in the Mission Possible project at Gray Park. He is also president of the Fostoria Historical Society and has served as vice president for the local Habitat for Humanity.

The Fostoria Ladies Garden Club hopes that their work will come to full bloom by the time the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure comes to town and Fostoria celebrates the Glass Heritage Festival. When we drive past the library, City Building, mid-block or the cemetery, we can appreciate their efforts to make Fostoria a brighter place to live.

And when we go down Vine St. we can appreciate both the dedication of the Garden Club as well as the spirit of civic pride and improvement that Gray Park represents.

The memory of George M. Gray and his belief in Fostoria’s future can serve as a reminder to us to do what we can to leave a better Fostoria to those that follow us.