A short walk from the gravel parking lot, green garden gates greet you as you approach Bartlett Arboretum in Belle Plaine, a Sumner County town south of Wichita. Walking through the gates, you’ll find a collage of images, smells, sounds and a feeling of entering a fantasyland only dreams could conjure.

Founded in 1910 by Dr. Walter E. Bartlett, the arboretum transcends time with its canopies of trees, shrubs, bushes and flowers planted by caring hands throughout generations. When Dr. Bartlett, a physician and naturalist, purchased the 15 acres that originally hosted the town’s dump, he focused his efforts on planting trees along the Euphrates Creek and creating a sports venue for his athletic son, Glenn, to have a vast area to practice and improve his skills.

TULIPS BLOOM THROUGH HARDSHIP

During World War I, Glenn joined the Big Red One out of Fort Riley and fought overseas in France. He was wounded, and while recovering in a French Red Cross hospital, he stayed in touch with his parents by writing letters home.

Robin Macy, owner of the Bartlett Arboretum since 1997, respects the history of the land she stewards in Dr. Bartlett’s name. Throughout the years of her ownership, Macy grew close to Dr. Bartlett’s granddaughter, Mary Gourlay, and had a weekly breakfast with her for 20 years until Gourlay’s passing in 2024. During one of those Sunday breakfasts early in Macy’s ownership of the arboretum, the two discovered a heartbreaking letter Glenn wrote while he was in France recovering from his war wounds.

“We actually found a letter he wrote,” Macy says. “He had one sister named Maxine, who was about 10 years younger than Glenn. She would have been about 7 years old, and she succumbed to the Spanish flu. In the letter I found, Glenn said he wanted to make a lasting memory in honor of Maxine.”

“Dear Father, I have just received your letter announcing the saddest event that ever could befall me, the death of my beautiful little sister, Maxine,” the letter from Glenn reads. “If anything should happen to me over here, it is my wish that some fitting remembrance be left to her, beautiful as she was.”

More than 100 years later, the memory of Maxine continues with the tradition of planting thousands of tulip bulbs each fall that bloom in the spring with their delicate petals in an array of colors. Nearly 40,000 tulips welcome spring and honor Maxine at Bartlett Arboretum.

“We have all these tulips blooming, and in 2020, no one could see them because it was early in the pandemic and we didn’t know what was safe and what wasn’t,” Macy says. “This tethering between the epidemic that claimed Maxine’s life and COVID-19 has such historical significance.”

TRANSITIONING OWNERSHIP

The Bartlett Arboretum is a testament to revitalization and regrowth, even through times of hardship. When Dr. Bartlett died in 1937 from a heart attack, the town of Belle Plaine, which had come to depend on the doctor’s caretaking, was shocked. The arboretum, too, lost its caretaker.

Glenn and his wife, Margaret, who were living in New York, moved back from successful careers to care for his father’s legacy rooted in Kansas. Under their tutelage, the arboretum flourished until war in Europe and the Pacific halted their ability to order plants and caused labor shortages, forcing them to close the gates.

It wasn’t until Kansas’ centennial celebration in 1961 that Glenn and Margaret, who had gotten other jobs since initially closing the arboretum, found excitement in the possibility of opening the gates to the tulip-filled grounds again.

With time comes more change. When Glenn and Margaret were slowing down, they passed the legacy onto their daughters, Glenna and Mary. Mary and her husband, Bob Gourlay, took a vested interest in making the arboretum thrive again.

Another hard time for the arboretum came, however, and in 1995, the family posted a “for sale” sign.

WRONG TURN TURNED RIGHT

Just down the road from Belle Plaine is Winfield, in neighboring Cowley County. The town hosts a popular bluegrass festival called the Walnut Valley Festival.

“The festival is truly a pilgrimage, and I have attended it every year since the first year that I went,” Macy says. “I was heading out of town when it was over and took a wrong turn. I drove by a ‘for sale’ sign on a front gate.”

Despite the overgrown weeds and vines that had taken over since its closure, Macy says she never thought twice about the purchase of the arboretum and saw the potential of what it could be again. In 1997, Macy breathed new life into the arboretum and set her sights on making the Bartlett family proud.

WHERE MUSIC AND MEDICINE MIX

Macy grew up in St. Louis, Mo., which is coincidentally where Dr. Bartlett got his medical training.

“I found his diploma in the attic of the house when I first moved here,” says Macy, who lives in a quaint but cozy 500-square-foot house on the arboretum’s grounds. “It’s from St. Louis School of Surgical Arts, which is now Washington University.”

Macy’s music-forward home features shelves stocked with vinyl records and guitars eagerly waiting to be strummed. She’s not only the wizard of the Bartlett Arboretum wonderland, she’s also a marvel with words. She’s a songwriter and a founding member of the Dixie Chicks (now known as The Chicks). She’s always loved female harmonies — an appreciation that grew from her grandmother — and has founded other female groups throughout her career.

“My grandmother sang with her sisters,” Macy says. “These four women sang together and created this beautiful female harmony that blended in a way that sounded like one collective voice. Then I sang with my sister growing up.”

Her love of music didn’t stop growing when Macy bought the Bartlett Arboretum and moved to Kansas. In fact, she found a new love and nurtured more than just her musical talent.

“I played music my whole life, but this place has been my inspiration,” Macy says of the arboretum.

Macy’s songs, such as “Acre of Land,” “Here in the Heartland” and “The Great Outdoors,” feature melodies spun from her passion of the land with notes of nostalgia and the iconic strum of guitars.

Macy describes her song “Shine On, Ad Astra” as a love song to Kansas.

“I did a lot of research for that song because I’m not a native Kansan,” she says. “I’ve fallen in love with Kansas so much that it’s a bit long. My producer said, ‘Cut some notes, Mozart.’ I didn’t want to, but I cut some out, and it’s still a bit long because there’s just so much to love about this state.”

TOOTING BELLE PLAINE’S HORN

With a love for the state she now calls home, plus a town she adores, Macy is passionate about community development in Belle Plaine.

“We lost our grocery store, and so it was in my face that our community was considered a shirttail community for Wichita because it’s a commutable distance,” Macy says. “So we are growing food for our community. We’re devoted to that.”

The food raised at the arboretum is in a hoop house, so they have the capability to raise food for a longer period than if the garden were completely outside. Macy makes the products available in a variety of ways, including at a couple of places in town that offer refrigeration and through a dinner series at the Bartlett Arboretum called Live from the Whistle Stop where the food served is grown in the garden.

The name “Whistle Stop” is an ode to the efforts made to keep nearby trains from blowing their horns as they crossed through the town. This effort was an initiative that took Macy and supportive community members 10 years to complete.

“Our quiet zone initiative was a David and Goliath story,” Macy says with pride. “The train through Belle Plaine would come about every five to seven minutes. That frequency interrupts the pastoral community and would be a disruption for events at the arboretum like weddings, memorial services and concerts.”

When trains go through intersections, they are federally required to sound their horn to warn motorists or pedestrians of their arrival. When communities like Belle Plaine want to implement a quiet zone and prevent trains from this requirement, it involves the introduction of supplemental safety measures to compensate for the lack of a train horn.

The community established a fundraising campaign through the Legacy Regional Community Foundation to underwrite the design and construction of the safety measures that physically prevent motorists from going around railroad crossing arms.

“We are privileged to have an affiliation with the Legacy Regional Community Foundation to help us collect tax-deductible donations and help us with grants,” Macy says.

The Legacy Regional Community Foundation is in that nearby town of Winfield where the Walnut Valley Festival happens each fall. Yazmin Wood, the Foundation’s executive director, has a sincere passion for helping Winfield and nearby communities thrive.

“Legacy works all throughout Cowley County, but also into parts of Sumner, Elk and Chautauqua counties,” Wood says. “Bartlett Arboretum utilizes the Foundation’s assistance for charitable programming efforts like feeding their community with their hoop house gardening and the quiet zone initiative.”

“In addition, we’re creating a Bartlett Arboretum Society with its own board of directors to keep the arboretum viable and vibrant,” Macy says.

GROWING FOR THE FUTURE

The arboretum has a rich history, and Macy wants to make the future just as rich. As a former teacher, Macy puts a lot of stock in the future of the community by connecting with local schools to teach them about the arboretum.

“We are planting trees with kids, we are going there and reading books,” Macy says. “Every single elementary school kid will come here and tie a wish on our Wish tree. My goal is to leave a lasting legacy that lives beyond our children’s children so they can have a place to walk through and be inspired by the greatest teacher of all — Mother Nature.”

ART AT THE ARB

Taking care of the sprawling acreage that has hundreds of varieties of trees and numerous shrubs, bushes and flowers is no easy feat. Macy is proud of building a team of 30 volunteers who are called “Soil Sisters and Brothers.”

One of those Soil Sisters, Jackie Fursman, finds fulfillment in her role as a dedicated volunteer for the arboretum.

“I’m brand new, and I’m going to stay,” she says. “The arboretum is a Kansas treasure that everyone should come see. It’s very therapeutic. Seeing all the new plants coming up and being able to take care of them and being able to use my knowledge of plants is so rewarding.”

Through its rise and a few falls, the arboretum is enjoyed by all and welcomes visitors from March through June and again in August. The arboretum holds regular special events such as a concert series on the weekends, a Great Gatsby-esque garden party fundraiser, weddings and corporate outings. Its trees are among the best in the state, with 11 Kansas Champion Trees, and the park is on the National Register of Historic Places.

HEAVEN IS FOR REAL

Growing up in St. Louis, Macy’s mom had a season pass to the Missouri Botanical Garden (previously founder Henry Shaw’s gardens) and was a world-renowned gardener herself. Macy recalls memories of her trips to the garden and the impressive home gardens her mother cared for.

“We’re marked by our experiences,” Macy says. “I grew up appreciating gardening because of my mom. My mom is now in hospice care, and her nurse came by one day. I told her to take five minutes to walk around the arboretum. When she saw me again, she was weeping because she is surrounded by death in her job as a hospice nurse. She told me, ‘I needed this because just as Henry David Thoreau said, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.’ It’s hard to believe you’re anywhere except heaven when you’re here.”

Macy’s life and the Bartlett family’s legacy are intrinsically connected. With her connection to Dr. Bartlett by being from St. Louis and his medical degree from there, her tie of her love of gardening from her mother to now owning the arboretum, and her musical talents taking the stage within the canopy of trees in the arboretum, there’s no shortage of serendipity.

“Life is full of serendipitous connections,” Macy says. “You just have to know to look for them.”

When a “for sale” sign for something perfect for you comes your way because of a wrong turn, consider it kismet. It might one day end up being the place you call heaven.

Learn more about Bartlett Arboretum at www.bartlettarboretum.com.

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY: