RUSSELL-SKEHAN, E. 2021. FIVE GENERATIONS OF RUSSELL’S GARDEN CENTER. ARNOLDIA, 78(5-6): 10-12 
Five Generations of Russell’s Garden Center 
Elizabeth Russell-Skehan 
and mic over my right shoulder as I opened 
the photo album of Russell’s Garden Center 
from the 1980s. “There’s the four of us,” I said 
with a smile to my husband, Tim, who sat next 
to me. I was referring to a photograph of us with 
my mom and dad, wearing our teal Russell’s 
shirts and sitting in front of our new sign on 
Route 20. The highway connects Wayland with 
Boston, about sixteen miles to the east. 
Our daughter Genevieve, the movie director, 
encouraged me to continue. “Pretend there’s no 
camera or mic here, and just tell me about the 
five generations of Russell’s.” 
I began my story, explaining how the busi- 
ness was established in 1876. “My great-grand- 
father Samuel Lewis Russell was a butcher,” I 
said, “and his original store was called Russell’s 
Provisions.” He lived at the farm where Rus- 
sell’s is today, but his store was located about 
half a mile away, at the intersection of Route 
2.0 and Pelham Island Road, in Wayland Center. 
It stood near a grocery store called the Collins 
Market, along with the library, post office, and 
several churches. Everything was within walk- 
ing distance. “There were no cars in 1876, for 
convenience,” I said. 
Tim held up a picture of the Russell’s Provi- 
sions storefront for the camera to capture. We 
were filming a documentary about our family 
business, aiming to tell the story of how our 
144-year-operation—one of the oldest garden 
centers in the country—tackled the challenges 
of the pandemic by changing our business 
dramatically. For us, the family history was a 
central motivation for maintaining the garden 
center through the initial closures in March 
2020, when we experienced more than a mil- 
lion dollars in losses. We worried that we might 
have to close the business altogether. 
Genevieve asked, “Was your grandfather a 
butcher too?” 
“Not at all” I replied. I explained how my 
grandfather, Lewis Samuel Russell, was a 
[= the presence of the large video camera 
farmer. Like his father, he grew vegetables and 
cut flowers on the family farm, and he also 
raised chickens and sold the eggs. In 1920, he 
opened Russell’s Market in the space where we 
now sell garden tools—right next to his house. 
At that point, cars were becoming more com- 
mon, which meant that my grandfather could 
close the original location in town. It wasn’t 
just my grandfather running the market, I 
explained. “My Grammy, Ruth Russell, would 
add up customers’ purchases on a little pad of 
paper and collect cash and make change out of 
her apron pocket.” 
Genevieve asked me to pause for a moment 
and instructed the cameraman to zoom in on 
my face. She then asked, “What was it like 
growing up on a farm?” 
I described how I would visit my grandpar- 
ents almost every day. I would play in the fields 
with my sisters and cousins, while my grand- 
father and great uncle worked nearby planting, 
weeding, and picking crops. At that point, my 
parents were involved with the business, so 
we would often stop to see them in the office, 
before heading to Grammy’s yellow house, 
which still stands along Route 20. She’d give us 
fresh bread and sweets that she’d cooked on the 
old black coal stove. In the evenings, when my 
grandparents babysat for us, we’d watch Law- 
rence Welk and Carol Burnett on the television 
as they counted the cash from the day at their 
kitchen table. Family and business were insepa- 
rable. “They’d hide the cash in an oatmeal box 
in the cupboard,” I said. “Once it was full, my 
grandma would put it in her bra and ride the bus 
to deposit it in the bank.” 
Tim flipped the page of an album from 1965 
to reveal a picture of my dad, Lewis Samuel 
Russell Jr., watering rows of flowers growing in 
our greenhouses. The cameraman zoomed in 
with his lens. 
My dad joined the business after he returned 
from the Korean War. By then, a significant part 
of the business revolved around wholesaling 
Facing page: Russell's Garden Center has been a family-owned fixture in 
Wayland, Massachusetts, for five generations. 
PHOTOS COURTESY THE AUTHOR; USGS MAP FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY, HARVARD MAP COLLECTION 
