Spring oasis at the heart of the hospital

Above, Melanie Torio shows niece Cassandra Sumera the garden’s tulips. Patients, families, staff and employees have been able to enjoy the Prouty Memorial Garden (below) since 1956.

Even though the first day of spring brought snow flurries to Boston, fairer whether is just around the corner.

That means the dogwoods and tulips will be budding in the Prouty Garden, offering patients and families some respite from their rooms, and staff and employees a pleasant place for a break.

The Prouty Memorial Garden is nestled between the Wolbach and Farley buildings, a quiet and colorful oasis at the heart of the hospital.

Olive Higgins Prouty (1882-1974), a well-known author in the first half of the twentieth century, funded the ongoing maintenance of the garden beginning in 1953, when two wards she had financed a quarter century earlier were demolished to make way for the Farley building. The space for the garden was almost turned into parking spaces before Prouty intervened and offered to create a garden and terrace for the hospital.

She enlisted The Olmsted Brothers, the landscape architectural firm that designed Boston’s Emerald Necklace park system, to design the garden.

Dedicated in October 1956, the Prouty Garden is modeled after the terrace and garden at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Prouty wanted the garden to be simple and “self supporting.” In a letter to the Olmsted Brothers, she described her hope that it would benefit not only the children who were patients at Children’s Hospital, but also that it would provide a place for “brief periods of refreshment and relaxation” for the staff.

Even today the garden promises to refresh and relax — if and when springtime decides to show its face.

©2002, Children's Hospital Boston. All rights reserved.