‘Off to the garden I go,to lose my mind and find my soul’
BLACKSHEAR — Marilyn Clough Waters has a sign perfectly describing her motto for working in the yard.
The inscription on the sign for “Marilyn’s Garden” features this happy couplet: “Off to the garden I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”
And, Waters does just that at her home on Heritage Circle.
Practically every inch of her yard is in cultivation with plants and flowers galore, many of which break out in a rich, beautiful tapestry of blooms of every color, size and variety.
She started early in life learning about cultivation and growing things while being raised on her family farm. The family’s main crops were tobacco in the spring and summer and pecans in the fall.
“I remember from an early age, I always liked growing things,” she said.
Waters recalls picking weeds as a small child to make bouquets — especially anything with a flower on it.
Eventually, her parents began to buy her packets of seed to experiment with.
Waters is a natural beauty and that beauty led to her being crowned Miss Pierce County Tobacco Queen in 1957, which at that time raised money to build the Blackshear City Pool.She was also Miss Spirits of Turpentine.
After graduating from Blackshear High School, she went on to the University of Georgia.
There she became a life-long, die-hard Bulldogs’ fan. Waters was also a member of Alpha Gamma Delta Society and was the Sigma Pi fraternity representative for Homecoming Queen, Miss Modern Venus and several other contests.
Don’t let those beauty pageant titles fool you, however. Waters is just as at home and comfortable in work clothes in the garden and among her flowers as she is in ballgowns and formal wear.
During the summers while in high school and UGA, she worked at Gilmore’s Department Store and also applied her love of flowers while working at the Blackshear Flower Shop.
A long-time educator, Waters taught social studies and SPED classes. She began in 1960 first at Blackshear Junior High and then, later, at her alma mater, Blackshear High School, before finishing up her career in 2003 at Pierce County High School.
She was known as a fun and engaging educator who was always interested in the success of her students, even after they graduated. She served as president of Pierce County Education Association.
Waters was asked to represent Junior High Teachers on a state committee to work with the Governor of Georgia about pay raises for teachers.
While teaching at Blackshear High School, she started the Miss Junior High Contest. Waters sponsored the junior high cheerleaders and started the first girls basketball team which went on to be successful at BHS.
She was also instrumental in organizing and sponsoring the first peewee football cheerleader squad.
Once at PCHS, she and her friend, the late Judy O’Steen, started and sponsored the BETA Club which won the State BETA Club award for raising the most money per member for the American Cancer Society. The State Beta Club had as an altruistic project.
They also took Beta members to the annual convention each year and took members to the National Convention in Texas, Nashville, Tenn., South Carolina and Georgia.
After retiring from education,Waters occupied her free time with a wide variety of activities, including the Red Hat Society and the ministries of First Baptist Church and later Briarwood Baptist Church. She also served on the committee that spearheaded having the fountain on the courthouse square.
Waters was a member of Blackshear Woman’s Club and a charter member of Pilot Club. While in this club, she was given credit for increasing voters to go out and vote in city elections by making posters and putting them on marquees on streets around town to remind citizens to vote.
She also bought supplies to decorate the new lamp post in the city for Christmas and added Christmas wreaths on the newly renovated Pierce County Courthouse. Waters was also a member of the Okefenokee Heritage Center, entered some paintings in the annual art contest and assisted in several receptions for the annual event.
In addition to all of her civic and social activities, Waters also made sure she had plenty of time for family.
Photo By JASON DEAL Marilyn Waters has a home for her feathered friends nestled by an ornamental and a Japanese maple.
Photo By JASON DEAL Marilyn Waters has several varieties of amaryllis on her property located in Blackshear.
She took care of her husband, Steve, longtime owner of Waters Ford. The Waters’ were married for 62 years at the time of his passing in 2022.
Waters is the mother of three children Stephanie Waters Fatula, Melanie Waters and Stephen Waters III. She is also grandmother of Joey Lee Jr., and Mari Claire Sikes and a greatgrandmother to Ramsey Lee.
But, she always finds time in the midst of that busy schedule to go dig in the dirt and play among the plants.
Waters plunged into her new past time with gusto.
“I love it so much that if I see something new and different in flowers and I don’t have it, I am going to get it,” she said.
In fact, Waters is believed to be the first person to have a white, limelight hydrangea in Pierce County.
After her retirement, Waters enrolled in the master gardener’s class taught by Ware County Extension Agent Tony Ott at Wacona School. The program eventually made its way to Pierce County and was taught by Pierce County Agent John Ed Smith.
Waters said the class and free time after she retired opened up plenty of opportunities to get out in the garden and grow things.
Eventually, she taught a class herself on having container gardens.
“The whole concept is just as the name implies, you plant your flowers or plants or whatever you desire in a container,” Waters said. “It’s mobile and you can grow things in a small space on your patio or porch.”
Waters, ever the teacher, looked for interesting ways to do container gardens, including teaching her gardening classes to use crumpled up plant pots or even pool noodles to use as the base before applying potting soil.
She joined the South Georgia Day Lily Society.
“I especially enjoy day lilies,” she said.
At one time, Waters had over 100 varieties planted in her yard. Some of her most prized day lilies come from her dear friend and fellow flower enthusiast, Vicki Parker Dixon.
Dixon gave Waters some day lilies she received from her mother, Joan Hickox Parker. The heirloom day lilies were passed down to Parker from her mother and from her grandmother to her mother.
“It is just unique that it is a fifth generation flower,” she said.
Photo By JASON DEAL Practically every inch of Maryilyn Waters’ yard has something growing in it. There are a variety of plants and a good mixture of colors.
Her love for day lilies has taken her from mid-Florida to as far north as Kennessaw looking for new varieties and colors.
In addition to Dixon, Waters also loves to talk flowers and plants with her friend, Karry Jarrell.
Waters also found other ways to use her talents.
After trees were planted as part of Blackshear’s City Beautification project, she organized a “Plant Blackshear” group to plant flowers twice a year around the trees to help beautify the city.
Despite her busy schedule,Waters makes time to do tilling, planting, weeding, watering, fertilizing and nurturing all the green and growing things in her gardens.
“I just love it,” she says. She downplays her gardening skills and talents, however.
“I just till it, weed it, water it and fertilize it,” she said. “God is the one who creates it and makes it beautiful.”
