1911 was an eventful year for Eloise. One event would not have been known but for a newspaper article on May 25 which explained why there is a gap in her 1911 Garden Log between May 17 and June 10th. The event was that Eloise was in an accident and hospitalized at Asbury Hospital. The Minneapolis Tribune reported on May 25 "Miss Butler Leaves Hospital" that she was sufficiently recovered to be released. She and Mary Meeker had been on a plant collecting excursion to Bloomington when she was thrown from her buggy and sustained a fracture of the right arm and serious injury to her hip. The Tribune states the accident was on May 9, but her log indicates she was planting on May 17 and could not have been injured. Either her log date is wrong or the Tribune is wrong and maybe May 19 makes more sense for the accident date.

Such journeys south to Bloomington and to Savage took her to the Minnesota River bottoms at Lyndale Avenue and westward where she collected plants. One of those, rare in the city today, was Marsh Arrowgrass, Triglochin palustris.

The old Asbury Hospital, built in 1872, was at 6th Streen and 9th Avenue South. It was relocated in the late 1920s and its successor, built in the 1950s is Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park.

Mary Meeker

Eloise referred to Mary Meeker as the photographer of the Garden. Besides being a fellow teacher with Eloise at South High she took the photographs that illustrated all 24 of Butler's 1911 weekly newspaper columns and those for the Garden's State Fair exhibit from 1910 through 1917. For the 1910 exhibit she prepared over 100 photographs, many colored by hand, including several large photos of Garden scenes. Accompanying Eloise on plant collection outings was not unusual. One example of their escapades were written in Eloise's report of In Search of the Fragrant Fern from 1916.

Eloise Retires

At the end of the 1911 school year Eloise Butler retired from teaching, completing 37 years in the Minneapolis School System. She was then appointed Curator of the Wild Flower Garden by the Board of Park Commissioners. This kept her in Minneapolis and created the history of her and the Garden. Details leading to this appointment are in the 1911 Garden History.