My mother, Virginia Eivers Gorton, was raised in The Rose City amid Portland’s lush beauty, but her garden was always more of a dream. While she delighted in the natural beauty of flowers, that love never extended to actual hands in the soil. If truth be told, perhaps the interest in gardens was more my interest and although I championed the joys of gardening through the years, she was always otherwise engaged. In 1917, Mother was born into a family of hard-working and accomplished women. Gardens, tea parties and the like were not the customary pastimes of these women. Continue reading →