Heritage garden

Susan Hill’s garden has family history, love, and just a bit of smuggling in it

MUSKOKA SUN - The White Star ship docked in Montreal after a transatlantic crossing, and a diminutive girl walked down the gangway, valise in hand. Pretty, four-foot nine, 105 pounds and 14 years old, she was a “bound girl,” a servant on her way from London to work in one of the grand homes of Montreal.
This girl, all alone in Canada in 1915, was Corrie McMahon, and her story lives on in a garden in Gravenhurst.
The garden belongs to Corrie’s granddaughter, Susan Hill, and her husband Wayne.
Susan delights in talking about Corrie’s garden, and how it lives on in her own garden and will eventually pass on to Susan’s grandchildren.
When Corrie arrived in Montreal she worked as a “between maid,” a junior servant whose duties were split between the upper floors where the family lived and the lower floors where she helped the housekeeper, butler and cook. She worked her way up from “tweeny” to cook before leaving Montreal for Toronto. At a home on the Bridle Path she worked for John Carson until she retired, eventually coming to Muskoka.
In 1950 she bought a home in Gravenhurst, a cement block home with outhouse at 285 Mary Street which she bought for $500. “My grandmother was the kindest soul, simply lovely,” said Susan. “I would go to her house on Saturdays and work in the garden, chop wood and do the weeding while she gardened.”
“After, I would have a bath in a tin tub in her kitchen.”
When she could, Corrie would go back to London. These visits weren’t just social: they also served as botanical field trips.
From Canada she took birch and maple seedlings for friends and family. Coming back she brought seedlings and perennial slips for her own garden – delphiniums, columbines, phlox and coral bells, plants that reminded her of England.
To get her treasures through customs, the tiny woman would tuck them into her undergarments, ferrying bits of English garden in her nylons and bloomers in order to plant them in Gravenhurst.
Whether it was the unique transport method or the care she lavished on the plants, her gardens would go on to win prizes, earning awards for irises and peonies at horticultural shows.
Corrie passed away at 90, but she left a legacy. Susan didn’t just inherit her Nanna’s contraband plants, she also acquired a store of gardening knowledge and passion.
These days Susan plants her Nanna’s flowers, not just for herself but for future gardens that her grandchildren – aged one to 11 – may grow.
The grandchildren know Susan as Nanna, and they too are learning how to garden. Already they know that they’re allowed to pick the wildflowers in the grass; the flowers in the garden must be allowed to grow unmolested.

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