TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Historian Labors In The Shadow Of The Minarets

Tribune photo by JAMIE PILARCZYK

Flo Lyles, the Friends of Plant Park historian, said she remembers seeing an alligator at the park’s zoo when she was a child. Lyles has just completed the club’s scrapbook, detailing its history from 1993 to 2003.

ADVERTISEMENT

By JAMIE PILARCZYK

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 31, 2008

PALMA CEIA - Flo Lyles, 81, spent the past two years cutting and pasting history into a scrapbook.

As the Friends of Plant Park's historian, she has finished documenting the club's first decade (1993-2003) and has begun work on a scrapbook of its second decade.

It's a labor of love.

"This is very time-consuming, but I have learned a lot," Lyles said. "It's important to Tampa."

Lyles was born in 1927 at Gordon Keller Memorial Hospital, the precursor to Tampa General Hospital, on the grounds of Henry B. Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel. Growing up in Hyde Park, she would go to Plant Park, formerly the hotel's gardens, and watch the alligator, bear and monkey that were part of the park's zoo.

"There was no television or any form of entertainment. We'd get on our bikes and go visit the park," said Lyles, a retired teacher. "We came to the park for picnics and for something to do. I was impressed with the alligator that would swim in the creek. It's just a puddle now."

Her scrapbook details how a group of gardening enthusiasts and Tampa Bay Hotel preservationists formed as the Friends on April 20, 1993. Today, the nonprofit group's 250 members swap gardening tips, have monthly planning meetings and host the annual GreenFest fundraiser for the park's preservation.

David Rigall, a Friends member and landscape architect, is helping guide the group's efforts on a master plan to restore the gardens to the original 1891 design.

Friends President Peggy Gill, who's also a member of the Davis Islands Garden Club, said the garden club's donation of a bench for the park in November 2005 sparked some reminiscing.

"Many of our garden club members remember parents who were engaged under the park's oaks," Gill said. "It brought back so many lovely memories."

Capturing those memories and preserving them was Lyles' mission. With tips from Junior League historians Lori Pucci-Rey and Gretta Brooks, Lyles discovered tools such as quick-drying glue and craft scissors.

Lyles doesn't have a computer, so Pucci-Rey and Brooks helped design and print cover pages.

Working Sherlock Holmes-style, Lyles organized a box full of a decade's worth of events in chronological order to create an archival history of the group.

"That's volunteerism at its best," Gill said.

BECOME A FRIEND

For information on the Friends of Plant Park, go to www.friendsofplantpark.com.

Reporter Jamie Pilarczyk can be reached at (813) 835-2114 or jpilarczyk@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT