Sally Cantor

Changing Traditions

Sally Cantor is a former social worker and recent member of The Village Garden Club. She has been involved in the club since 2016.

Sally Cantor.mp3

Interview with Sally Cantor and Caitlen Cameron above, also available on Cleveland Voices.

Sally Cantor [00:00:49] I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and my family had been in Georgia, I think about three generations and were... And I often wish I had asked more questions because they were Jewish, they came over after the Civil War, my great—what was it, my great or my great-great— are buried in the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, which is a real old historic cemetery, and [I] would've liked to have heard more about their experiences as Jews there.

[00:06:00] I, at my healthiest, realized if I wanted a healthier life, I couldn't... I couldn't stay in Atlanta. I needed to get away. And so I went to college outside of Chicago and then graduate school in New York.

Caitlen Cameron [00:11:33] What was your master's in?

Sally Cantor [00:11:37] In social work. I worked at a child welfare agency. I was part of a research project through the Child Welfare League of America to study whether at the time of the major crisis in a family where children were unsafe at home and where the normal... The standard was you would remove them into foster care if you poured in services, would that make... Could you keep them out of foster care? And I worked... You know, we care... There was a control group who got the traditional treatment and then our... And then we got the cases of this very small caseload. And you had tremendous resources to offer a family, including a residence where a young mother could live with her child and the child would be cared for during the day while she went to school. And there'd be people there to help her learn to better care for her child and help with bonding. And it was sort of very exciting to see some of these young parents move out—and, you know, where they had almost no parental support themselves—but move out and be able to get apartments, get them furnished, and have a way of, you know, raising their children. It was shown to be very effective.

Caitlen Cameron: [00:38:40] So prior to [joining The Village Garden Club], did you garden at any other places?

Sally Cantor: [00:38:53] I feel like I grew up in a family that we always had a garden. My mother was always fussing over some plant or another. My brother's a landscape architect and I, always in New York, I had plants. I had a lot of plants. And in my house we always had gardens. And it's something Roger and I've worked on together, fighting over every limb, every flower, is it a weed or isn't it a weed? Should it be cut down? No. Why? I think it shouldn't be. He thinks it should. And, you know, we... And we still are the ones tending our garden. It used to be that mulch was my annual Mother's Day present. You know, just a big truckload dumped in the driveway. And we've graduated to having someone mulch for us. But everything else other than trimming trees because we don't have a cherry picker to get, you know, just don't seem to have what we do. And I keep... I'm ready. I did this summer hire a teenage boy to do some weeding. He did eight hours of weeding for me, and Roger claims it went better when I treated him like an intern, but he would stir up my parental concerns, like I'd look out and I told him, you know, this is what needs weeding. And we talked about what the difference is in a flower in a weed. And I'd look out and it would be lightning and thundering and he's weeding. And I would go out there and say, you can't do this. You know, there's lightning and I'd send him home. And so that's when I was acting like a parent.

Caitlen Cameron [00:44:14] What year did you join?

Sally Cantor [00:44:17] You'd have to look in the book. I think I've been in the club five years, but the first three years I just went to meetings. I didn't do anything. But I was still working till... I think I started cutting back in 2019 and stopped in 2020. And you know, there'd be meetings on days I was working, but it's, it's nice. I enjoy that. There's no trauma issues that I'm dealing with, though, I think people, you know, we're now waiting to see what's going to happen with Horseshoe Lake.

And I became outreach chairperson—had no idea what that meant—and was trying to figure out what to do with it, and Barb Shockey had done a presentation about the founding members and had a picture of them up. And I learned we had these archives. And from there I got the idea of approaching the historic society about doing an exhibit in honor of the 90th anniversary of the club. And it didn't get going with the first executive director. But Brianna [Treleven, Shaker Historical Society Executive Director] picked up on it and was excited, and I think we came up with something really wonderful. And then that led to applying for a historic plaque for the gar[den] for the Cherry Grove, which will be installed next May. So those have been exciting.

Oh, and then the third thing that came as a result of that was our archives, which had been stored in someone's dining room and were not available, first in her basement and then she realized the basement was wet, then in her dining room, that it meant if she was out of town, if you needed something in the archives, you were out of luck. So they now, as of last week, have been transferred to the reference room of the Shaker Library and they'll be digitized and people can use them if they're researching women's groups or the Clark Freeway. So that feels really good to have been part of that.

The Club's Future & Night Blooming Cereus

Caitlen Cameron [00:59:39] How do you see the future going, I guess, for the garden club, for your garden, for things, and for Shaker?

Sally Cantor [01:00:03] Well, I think the club stayed together, and we met regularly on Zoom, and I think that was so very important and, you know, I hope... I think you're going to interview Kathleen Tripp and get her to talk about what that was like for her as president, because, you know, it really required a lot. And none of us, I think most of us, you know, we were immigrants to technology versus your generation. You know, where you're natives and, you know, mastering Zoom and all that requires some doing. And I hope we will continue with the Cherry Grove, expanding it when we can, making sure that we maintain it, educating people about it, sharing it.

Caitlen Cameron [01:03:17] How do you see the group evolving in, like, the next, say, let's say, two years?

Sally Cantor [01:03:22] Well, I think if we're going to grow, we have to consider some change, you know, and if we want to attract younger people, we need to have some meetings at night. You know, things that make it possible for them to return or I made the... We have a holiday party every year and I made the radical suggestion that it starts too early, you know, by the time my husband would get home from work and we'd get there, all the hors-d'oeuvres would...

Caitlen Cameron [01:04:00] Be gone? Do you think that the garden club will ever change, say, like, their acceptance policy? I know you need a reference and you have to apply?

Sally Cantor [01:04:14] I think that's something that probably will be looked at. I think it's important that people who join know that their expectation shall help out in the grove or you'll do other things that keep the club going.

Caitlen Cameron [01:04:36] I think some people are just afraid to apply because they're like, oh, my garden isn't pretty...

Sally Cantor [01:04:57] Well, I... when I was, I think, Dozie [Herbruck] and I sort of bonded around the night-blooming cereus. And she has one too. And she invited... Hers had a million buds, so mine's never had so many. And she invited us to come over and watch it bloom and they had... I think they were in Pennsylvania, drove back very fast. And when we got there Roger gave me a look and I knew what the look was they bloomed the night before. And Dozie, at one point we're sitting there watching it, and she said, don't tell me it bloomed the night before. And I think I said, I won't tell you. But that was... We've had fun trash talking each other. You know, mine's better than yours! But she's had amazing.... and her plant is prettier than mine. I don't know why.

Meeting Joe Biden

Sally Cantor: [00:24:27] I have one Delaware story that should be preserved. So we were we were moving. Merck was, you know, it was the good old days of working for corporations where they handled everything. So they were packing up the house, paying for the move, all of that. And Roger was already started his job and was living in corporate housing in New Jersey. And all I had to do was supervise two nervous children, two dogs, a turtle and a fish and get them ready. And the last night, my best friend, who was the mother of Becky's best friend, took us to dinner at a little neighborhood Italian place. We were... Lived near Little Italy in Wilmington, Delaware. And we're eating and we're reminiscing and we're, you know, a lot of different emotions, and [my daughter] Liz was tired of sitting, and there was very little activity in the restaurant, and I let her get up and walk around. And then I realized I couldn't see her and I didn't know where she was. So I get up to look, and in a corner distance from us, there was, there were two men sitting there eating. And as I'm approaching, I realized one of them had his arm around her. She's sitting in his lap and he's feeding her pasta.

And as I approached, I realized it was Joe Biden. Senator Biden then. And he just... He just had this warmth about him and this love of children. And he was feeding her. And, you know, I said hello and she was covered... It's summer. It's June. She's a four year old. She's sweating. She's covered with pasta sauce. And he was fine with it.

[00:27:05] I think I was a little in shock. And, you know, I said, you know, Oh, Senator Biden, and my friend knew him. And we talked for a minute. He wished me well with our move. And that was that. And if, you know, you said identify smells. Well, I wish I could tell you over the years, my young... Liz claims at various times she knows it was ravioli and she'll describe the smell or pasta, and I have... All I know was it was red and it coated her face.

The Fate of Horseshoe Lake

Sally Cantor [00:48:09] I sort of see my role as trying to stay informed about what's going to happen with the Northeast Ohio [Regional] Sewer District's recommendation of removing Horseshoe Lake, removing the dam and let it return to two branches of Doan Creek [Doan Brook] and turning it into a more natural area.

Caitlen Cameron [00:48:03] How you feel about what they're doing?

Sally Cantor [00:48:09] Personally, I... I mean, I've always enjoyed walking from here to the lake and walking around it. I've never felt the dam was very attractive. There's this big sort of boulder field. And I also I think, you know, from my understanding is Lower Lake has much more space for expansion and dams have been repaired there. And this returning it, I think as long as the Cherry Grove is maintained and they're telling us it will be, that it will not be destroyed, if they make this into a beautiful natural area and maybe if they're able to keep some of the picnic areas, I think it could be fine. I think there are people who've lived in this community their whole lives, who grew up with it, who probably feel very differently. I know that from their Facebook.

[00:51:01] I've been to one meeting and I think it would be beautiful. I think preserving areas for people to have outdoor meetings or family get togethers and parties is really important. But I I also think, you know, we're talking about restoration. Originally Doan Brook was a creek running through there.

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