Elisabeth Nebesny Memorial

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Thanks to Debbie Levo
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Sunday June 22nd, 1:30 PM at the Anchor Garden, North End Beach Boulevard
In the fall of 1995 the Hamilton Beach Garden Club was formed. One of its founding members will be honored on Sunday the 22nd of June with a memorial plaque installed in the Anchor Garden at the north entrance of the Beach Strip. Elisabeth Nebesny was a long time resident of the Hamilton Beach Community, living and raising four children on Grafton Avenue. She was active in the Hamilton Beach Preservation Committee, the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group, HIEA and Hamilton Clean Air. She passed away in October of 2006 and will always be remembered here as a strong force behind the beautification of Hamilton’s Beach Strip. She along with founding club members Ann Hanson and Alice Selby as well as others worked tirelessly and were responsible for the flower filled traffic island south of the boulevard, the Memorial Garden at the South Entrance and the Anchor Garden at the North end and the six historic display boards along the now Waterfront Trail. Since 1997 these Community gardens came to life after the club raised many thousands of dollars through Industries, the City of Hamilton, The
Hamilton Industrial Environmental Association, the Port Authority, and local residents.
They welcome visitors to the Beach Strip and say, “welcome home” to all of us that live here each time we pass by.
The Beach Bloomer Awards were established in 2000 and given each year to residents for their beautiful front gardens until 2004.
Elisabeth was once quoted as saying “if you don’t dream, you don’t get anywhere”. She and her fellow club members dreamed of a more beautiful and vibrant community and we will be able to honour her Sunday with her own Bloomer Award, along with her family members and representatives from the Associations she worked with.
This is but a small description of Elisabeths’ good works for her Community and the Hamilton Beach Community Council invites all of her past friends to pay her tribute.

Photos from 2002, thanks to Ann Hanson.
#1- Councillor Collins and Elisabeth.

#2- Garden Club.

 

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A little club grows on our beach.

Posted with permission from the Hamilton Spectator
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The members of the Hamilton Beach Garden Club don't spend a lot of time talking — they just make gardens
By ROBERT HOWARD
The Hamilton Spectator
July 14, 2000
If there's such a thing as a dirt-un-der-the-fingernails garden club, the Hamilton Beach Garden Club is just that.
The women (and a few men) who make up the club don't get speakers or spend much time discussing new plants or garden designs. They make gardens. And the Beach Strip community, well on the way to recovery after years of neglect and uncertainty about its future, is all the richer for it. For those of us who haven't driven along Beach Boulevard recently (or, better, walked it), the effort put into beautifying the homes and gardens there is sheer revelation.
About two weeks ago, the club held its first (of what is almost certainly annual) Hamilton Beach garden awards, a community-wide effort modelled on the city's civic beautification Trilliums. More than two dozen properties were nominated and the club awarded one first prize — the Beach Bloomer award —as well as two runners-up and two honourable mentions.

Club lobbies city
The club has also been the driving force behind a flower-filled traffic island just south of Beach Boulevard and a massive tree-planting program at one of the largest industries neighbouring the Beach Strip. As well, the club lobbied and cajoled the city to create a lovely, compact garden at the southern entrance to Beach Boulevard. A 70-ton boulder, a bench and lighting complement a sign — deigned in the same gingerbread style as many of the lovely old homes on the strip — that welcomes visitors to the beach community. The garden club members plant and maintain the large lower bed (including planting tulip bulbs in the middle of an early snowstorm one fall).
Not bad work for a garden club that was first thought of just five years ago. Ann Hanson, Elisabeth Nebesny and Alice Selbie are three of the founding members of the club. Nebesny is the president of the club (and carries a thick file folder of records of what the club has accomplished to prove it) but all three defer in turn to each other as they talk about the club. Hanson has lived in her Beach Boulevard house for 55 years (in what was a winter home built in 1900 for a Hamilton druggist named Mundy), Nebesny on Grafton Avenue, just off Beach, for 40 and Selbie on the boulevard for 27. These Beach Strip veterans don't need to pull rank on anyone, least of all on each other.
The residential community along the Hamilton beach was, for many years, an endangered species, living under the axe of city plans to clear the boulevard — which runs between Van Wagner's Beach Road and the lift bridge — of homes and turn it into parkland. Those plans have now been abandoned and, as Selbie says, "They can't afford to buy us out now." Most of the homes that 20 years ago were, if not neglected, at least suffering from owners' uncertainty about whether they'd be there much longer, have now been repaired and restored. And many of them have the lovely gardens that come only from loving investment of both time and money.
The idea of a community garden club came up in the fall of 1995 at a meeting of the Beach Preservation Committee. "We started talking about improving the looks of the beach," said Nebesny. They started by asking the city to put in the traffic-island planting, but were told they would have to fundraise the $11,000 needed for the construction work. While they went to work on that, they also approached Lafarge Slag, the closest industrial property to Beach Boulevard, about planting trees to soften the look of the property. Both initiatives came through: Lafarge planted 120 poplar trees in the spring of '96 (later planting more to bring the total to more than 300) and the area industries, big and small, came through with donations for the traffic-island project.
By the spring of '97, the group had also secured city support for what had by then become the Ryan Memorial Garden, named after a Beach community family. The city agreed to install it — boulders, bench, patio and sign — as long as the garden club kept it up. "We keeg hinting for a water fountain," Selbie says. "We're working on it." Now, it is planted with roses and hollyhocks, daylilies, columbine, peonies and quince. It's hugely attractive and the tall hollyhocks catch the attention of passing traffic. The traffic island — which required new construction for an irrigation system — went in the same year.
Last fall, a Beach resident suggested there should be recognition for some of the front gardens that were being made along Beach Boulevard and its sidestreets. Nebesny, Hanson, Selbie and others came up with the Beach Bloomer award, a classy banner-shaped award made of painted steel (the numbers are in off-white on an antique blue background). The awards were advertised in The Beach Banner, the community newsletter, and by spring, 26 nominations had come in.

(Despite the fact that the three women, as well as fellow garden-club member Linda Anderson, who lives next door to Hanson, had lovely gardens, they kept themselves out of the awards. More on Hanson's and Anderson's garden in the accompanying story.)
Hanson knew Dundas garden gurus and gardening-book authors Dave and Cathy Cummins through her volunteer work at the Royal Botanical Gardens. They said they'd help judge the awards and together with Ward 5 Alderman Chad Collins, visited each of the nominated properties. The winning front garden — a magnificent garden consisting of a large pond and waterfall, as well as copious plantings of ornamental trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals — bears the first ever Beach Bloomer award.
The three women expect that momentum and word of mouth will mean even more nominations next year (they expect there may have to be two rounds of judging to make picking the winner manageable). In the meantime, they are working on more projects, looking after the memorial garden and attending their own gardens.
"If you don't dream, you don't get anywhere," Nebesny says.
The garden awards recognize the changes in the Beach community, among residents and also by visitors, Selbie says.
The attractive front gardens (and the lovely houses that they decorate) give the message to fellow residents and to visitors that this is a community that's here to stay.

Photo #1- Garden Club gathering at the Dynes, from 2002, thanks to Ann Hanson.

Photo #2- Ribbon cutting at the newly openned south gateway garden, Mayor Morrow on the end. From 1998 and thanks again to Ann Hanson.

 

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The memorial took place before a crowd of Beach residents and family members from the Nebesny clan. Jim Howlett started the day with a much appreciated speech on Beach history and a reminder of Elisabeth achievements over the years. Next was Andy Sebestyen from the HIEA group of which Elisabeth was a long time member. Lastly there were some parting words from Elisabeth's daughter before the rain started.
Thanks to Beach residents Debbie Levo and Ed Nowlan.

 

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Just to add.....

As many of you know, the peregrine falcons at the Lift Bridge have four new offspring. One of the female chicks was named in honour of Elisabeth.

I have attched a list of all the names;
Maitland – Male.
The name originated from Lt. Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland who authorized the construction of the Burlington Canal in 1826.

Nellie – Female.
No, she’s not named after Nelly Furtado. This name is a creative combination of Nelson and Wellington, two communities that merged to form the City of Burlington.

Parker – Male.
The name is based on the firm that designed the lift bridge, C.C. Parker.
Source: Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada

Nebesny – Female.
This bird was named in honour of Hamilton resident Elisabeth Nebesny who passed away in 2006. Ms. Nebesny worked tirelessly to improve the local beach and the waterfront trail.


Attached are some photos of Nebesny during the banding process.

 

[JManCan]

Mrs. Nebesny

Nice to see a tribute to Mrs. Nebesny here. She was the moving force in getting the south gateway garden going and was kind enough to put a plaque up for my Mom and Dad (Kay and Bill Ryan). She was a sweet lady!! There's a picture of the ribbon cutting a few posts up. I was surprised to see myself there in the foreground with my then small son, who now stands taller than me.

John Ryan

 

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Update

Hello All

We have received some great news this morning from Barb at the Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division down in MIch. USA that a new female has arrived on site and setting up a territory with a 2009 male (produced in Cleveland Ohio) just north of Detroit Mich.



We have been able to identify and confirm her identity by her Black Canadian Colour marker bands and can confirm that she is non-other then “Nebesny”, a female produced in 2008 at the Burlington Bridge nest site. Banded Black 29 over Black X on July 12th 2008, weighing 907 grams – (empty crop), at approx. 29 days old.

Her mate has been identified by his band number as being hatched in 2009, named “Zeus” , dawning a Black 73 over Red B band produced in Cleveland Ohio USA.



We are all delighted to hear this good news and hope that Nebesny and Zeus are successful in their efforts.

Sincerely

Mark Nash

CPF

 

[doubleJJ]

What great news....and a wonderful tribute to Mrs Nebesny...lets hope they are successful in mating....:kiss::kiss: