History
The Compassion of a 6-Year-Old Boy Became a Catalyst
In the mid-1990s, the deaths of Adrianna Dickerson (age 12), Elysia Coughlin (age 16) and Jerimayer Warfield (age 12) from gunfire stunned the Nashville community. Kelby Smith, 6 years old, heard the news reports and asked his father how he could show the families he cared.
Ron Smith was a horticulturist and immediately thought of a garden. He met with Jim Fyke, then director of Metro Nashville Parks, and the Parks Board unanimously approved the creation of a Children’s Garden in Centennial Park. Financial and in-kind contributions of plants and materials poured in from local congregations and businesses. This included Charlie Hunt of Hunt Memorials, who donated stone work and markers, an in-kind gift he has continued to do through the years.
In 1996, the Garden was formally dedicated, and 35* children, linked to Davidson County through family or other ties, and who lost their lives to violence in 1996 and previous years, were remembered in the Garden.
The Offices of the Mayor of Metro Nashville-Davidson County, District Attorney General of the 20th Judicial District and Victim Witness Services, Metro Nashville Police Department and Victim Intervention Services, and victim advocate organization You Have The Power volunteered to maintain the Garden in its early years with new plantings, weeding and cleanup. As the Garden matured, the Parks Department assumed complete maintenance.
“What I wouldn’t give
for just one day
When holding you
was all it took to wipe
those tears away
Remember all the days
we’ve left behind
and hold them in your heart,
sweet child of mine”
Gretchen Peters
“Child of Mine”
Sony Music. Used with Permission.
Unfortunately, with the passage of time, more children lost their lives to violence. By the end of the year 2016, the number of children remembered in the Garden had risen to 206.
As we entered 2019, the number of children who lost their lives to violence had grown to 234.
A grass-roots effort in 1996, the Garden is a place of comfort for many families; but time has taken its toll. Not having had the benefit of professional design, the Garden’s narrow path and uneven ground are not handicap-accessible, and its low-lying area is subject to water ponding on the stone markers during heavy rain, causing damage and limiting access. As part of the comprehensive restoration of Centennial Park, the Children’s Memory Garden is undergoing new design to restore its dignity and peace, and to make it accessible to all. The design process birthed a new approach, “Voices From the Garden”, stories about the children who are remembered in the Garden, 2017-2018. Our goal is to present the stories of every child in the Garden; this work is ongoing, and as biographies are completed, they will be on the Children’s Memory Garden website, which is under development (here!).
*History of the Children’s Memory Garden Centennial Park Nashville, Tennessee
Victim Intervention Program, MNP