If you notice more daffodils around the Vineyard this spring, you may have Melly Meadows to thank.
Meadows, a Vineyard Haven resident, says that she has planted 14,000 daffodil bulbs on-Island this past winter, doing the dirty work with volunteers and at local businesses, as well as installing heart-shaped floral arrangements at Vineyard cemeteries and the Vineyard Haven Post Office.
Meadows’ post office plantings, which also feature rows of flowers, have now bloomed in the building’s previously barren parking lot.
The Vineyard’s daffodil blooms this spring are just the latest flower season for Meadows, who says that in the last few years she has planted over 25,000 bulbs in total.
According to Meadows, she has been inspired to beautify public spaces after serious health struggles with lupus. She says that planting the flowers keeps her spirits high, especially after long hospital stays.
“I was actually in the hospital ordering plants,” Meadows says. “It was rough. But then I decided I would come back and plant. I actually did it kind of out of spite for being in the hospital … I don’t want to let it take me down. So this is my way of fighting back.”
“This is my happy season,” Meadows said by the post office at Five Corners.
And while Meadows still has plans to plant lilies on Martha’s Vineyard, in the last couple of months she has made local news in Georgia, inspired by her own family history there as well as by civil rights leaders.
In March, Meadows visited the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, where she attempted to plant a heart of flowers to honor civil rights leaders John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr.
This planting, Meadows says, was thwarted by a police officer who threatened to arrest her. “Along comes this woman who had a tiny badge and a teaspoon of power,” says Meadows. “She says, ‘You can’t plant here, this is federal property, it’s against the law.'”
But while Meadows was unable to complete her daffodil planting at the King Center, she was able to plant in hometown of Jonesboro in memory of her late mother, Donna Meadows. Donna Meadows, says Melly, was the city’s first woman mayor, and took a stand for civil rights during her one term in office.
“I grew up in Jonesboro, which is the county seat for Clayton County, Georgia,” Meadows says. “My mom was the first woman mayor of Jonesboro, and this was in the ’90s. And when she was mayor, she desegregated the fire and the police department … So wrap your head around that. it’s the ’90s, and it’s still segregated.”
Melly says that after her mother called a vote to desegregate public services, she was met with resistance from the Ku Klux Klan.
“[My mother] ordered to break up the good-ol’-boys system that was controlling the county, the city, the everything. And when she put on the ballot that she was going to desegregate the city, police, and fire department, the grandmaster of the KKK came to her office. There were about seven of them, and they came without a mask and robe, which meant it was highly personal.”
The Klansmen, says Meadows, were at first unafraid to threaten violence. “They said, ‘Well, you don’t want to go through with this vote … You know, all the firemen and the policemen are going to be at city hall hoping you’ll make a good decision and change your mind … It would be a shame if your house caught fire that night, because all the fire department’s going to be in city hall … Oh, and it’d be terrible if accidents started happening with your family.”
But Meadows says that her mother — who also ran an income tax office — had done her homework. “In the midst of the good-ol’-boy system, there was also a lot of money laundering and siphoning from the housing authority,” Meadows explains. “[My mother] said ‘Oh, by the way, the audits that I’ve ordered on you guys — they’re going to be due in a week, and I just want to remind you I’m really good with numbers.”
Meadows says that her family was safe afterwards, though this was also due in no small part to her family receiving a state police security detail and being moved temporarily to an undisclosed location.
Meadows hopes that on the Vineyard, as well as in her hometown, public gardening inspires others to be a force for good in their communities.
“I saw my mom look hate in the face, and she stood up to it,” says Meadows. “And I like to think, in a small way, that maybe planting a flower here or there is a way to sow kindness in the world.”
Meadows’ efforts have also led to her being noticed by other Vineyarders, either while planting or driving in her distinctive orange-and-white “Nemo” car. “People say, ‘Oh, you’re the daffodil lady!” Meadows says.
In Vineyard Haven, Islanders stopping by the post office are appreciating the view of daffodils. “It’s better than having dirt there,” said Vineyarder Bob Amado on a recent spring day. “It’s a nice improvement.”
