In Memoriam: Jack Andrews
Karen Andrews
Birmingham, Alabama
The Birmingham Chapter was saddened by the loss of its president, Jack Andrews, at the age of 46. Jack had been president of the chapter since 1986. He was born in Mobile, Alabama, attended Auburn University and graduated from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He became interested in azaleas and rhododendrons in 1982 when landscaping his home. When he could not find a sufficient variety of plants from which to choose he found the American Rhododendron Society and the rhody bug bit him. He joined the ARS in 1984 where he was active in the chapter functions and grew a lot of his plants from seeds as well as from cuttings of which he donated many to botanical gardens. Jack was a knowledgeable and dedicated enthusiast of rhododendrons, reading everything he could get his hands on and enjoyed testing plants for this area. He called them a challenge and was out to prove the local doubters wrong when they told him he could not grow rhododendrons in the South.
Jack held down a full-time job as controller of a large corporation and spent all his spare time, holidays and vacation at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens in the species and hybrid gardens there. He gave lectures to local garden clubs and conducted Sunday strolls, lectures and tours of both the species and hybrid gardens at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Jack, in his spare time, had other life interests: Civil War history and building scale replica models of military planes and tanks. Jack's last unresolved matter was to make sure the chapter would go on, and held a specially called meeting, one week before he passed away, to do just that. He loved rhododendrons and wanted the work to go on. His extensive library of reference books has been donated to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens library.
I miss him greatly as my partner in life but he will always live on in the garden. The glory of the garden never passes away."