NINETY YEARS OF SERVICE

Helen Jarman and her neon pink bonnet are easy to spot, even among the beds of roses
and daffodils. Her cloud-white hair puffs beautifully from beneath it as she talks about her favorite beds and memories of so many years of service.
“We’ve got Maximillian sunflowers over there by the fence,” she said. “Over there is our rose garden.”
She said that the roses had been there nearly as long as she has. She points out the tears in her faded blue coat, each made by thorns in the rose bushes, and a few with thorns still sticking out of them. She calls it her “rose pruning coat.”
Jarman has been volunteering at the Lubbock Memorial Arboretum since 1970, just six years after Nat Williams founded it in 1964. She began her volunteerism with the Gladiola Society at the Garden and Arts Center where she became friends with Mrs. Williams.
In 1980 Jarman became the first woman working for the Lubbock Parks Department. Her job in the beginning was mostly as a liaison to the Arboretum. She coordinated many of the plantings, and while she worked with them for her career, she also spent her free time volunteering.
Eventually, Jarman gained more responsibility, and by the time she retired in 1991, she had worked in every park in Lubbock.
“If it had a flower bed, I’d been there,” she said as she pointed out a patch of daffodils she had helped plant several years previously.
She didn’t let retirement slow her down either. Shortly after she retired, she was asked to join the Arboretum’s board and served on it from 1991 to 2015. With a laugh Jarman said she
only retired from the board when she could no longer hear what was happening in the meetings. Even now, at 91, she said she never misses a Wednesday Work Day.
“When you think about the millions of hours that have been given by so many people,” she said, “and all the money that has been given by so many people, because (most of it) has been given by the people, it’s heart-warming.”
The Arboretum is more than just a beautiful place to Jarman. She said it is full of memories of her girls growing and the friends she has made over the years. She pointed out across the field to the flowerbed dedicated to her husband and waved at the group of Texas Tech students who were just finishing up at the compost heaps.
Jarman said that the Arboretum may be one of the best kept secrets of Lubbock, and that she never gets tired of coming out to volunteer.
“Just getting to see how things grow and how beautiful it can be at times,” Jarman said, “and getting to know the other volunteers. They are a wonderful group of people.”
However, Jarman said that not everybody coming to the Arboretum is there to enjoy the flowers. Because it is open to anyone at any time of day, the Arboretum has experienced its share of vandalism. While Jarman said the disruptions of such a beautiful space disturb her, she is glad that nothing has ever been too damaging, and the vandals tend to leave the buildings on the grounds and the 50-year-old trees alone.
“That tree was planted by the Junior Buds in 1962, a year after the Arboretum’s ground breaking,” Jarman said, and that working with the Junior Buds had been one of her favorite ways to volunteer. She also said that though they were no longer partners with the Arboretum, the work they have done over the years is invaluable.
As Jarman resumed tending her beds, she said that the special thing about the Arboretum was that it was open to everyone.
“It’s a place of beauty that is available for everybody who wants to come, free of charge,” she said, “You’re always welcome here, to enjoy or to work!”