The Schaffer-Miles Garden

Vanessa Grady and Cassandra Grady check in at Miles Garden, Cleveland Public Schools Horticulture Program, Cleveland, Ohio, July 1977. Photo courtesy of Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1977. Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library, Special Collections.

The Miles School, located at the corner of Miles Avenue and E. 120th Street, is home to a community garden. A 1945 video depicts the garden in bright color film as children prepare for an open house and awards ceremony. Most, if not all, of the children are white. They arrange bright red tomatoes on a table. They stand in the garden, and a streetcar chugs along Miles Avenue.

origins

Cleveland’s School Garden program was established in 1904, making it one of the earliest school garden programs. By some accounts, the Miles School Garden was one of the program’s most successful. In 1948, a report to the district superintendent listed Miles School Garden as one of eight school garden centers (Young 2). In 1963, according to The Plain Dealer, 900 students maintained garden plots there (Zverina 76).

The program ran until 1979, when like many Cleveland stories, the funding dried up. Just three years prior, the federal government had ordered Cleveland Public Schools to desegregate, a process that was slow-moving and expensive. At that time, the main focus of Cleveland’s desegregation plan was busing students to different areas of town to achieve racial balance (Lanese). In 1979, the New York Times reported that Cleveland teachers staged a walkout in protest of low salaries: a similar strike had canceled class for 36 days in 1978 (Teachers’ Walkout in Cleveland Shuts Most of the School System 24). Funds, evidently, were low.

Images courtesy of the Cleveland Memory Project, clockwise from upper left: Home gardener, James Russell, 3415 E. 137 Street, July 1968; Miles Garden building dedication tour group in the Cleveland Public Schools Horticulture Program, October 1962; Teacher training at Miles Garden, July 1963; Leighann Walker radish harvest at Miles Garden, July 1977; Lori Beverly weeds her vegetable plot at Miles Garden, July 1977; Student L. McCulley tends her vegetable plot at Miles Garden.

transitions

Union-Miles, like many areas on the Southeast side, was changing rapidly. White flight increased in intensity and scope. By 1980, the neighborhood, which was previously predominantly white, was about 90% non-white (Roy Union-Miles Neighborhood ).

The Miles School Garden, however, seems to have survived the dissolution of the district’s program and this period of rapid demographic change. In 1978, Rev. Ralph Fiota and the Schaffer United Methodist Church revived one facet of the school’s garden program: the historic log cabin across the street (Bartell 77).

dorothy Zeigler

Years later, an 1984 article in the Plain Dealer reported that the Miles School Garden was “alive and well again with 84 community residents at work”, and that the garden was supported by a new urban farming program, Seed to Shelf, which was run by Cuyahoga County (Urban Gardeners Reap Big Rewards 78). In 1986, garden coordinator Dorothy Zeigler described that the garden was initiating an adopt-a-family program, which supplied fresh vegetables for families that could not have their own garden plot (For Community Gardeners, Their Plots Are Thickening 71).

Zeigler loved the garden. During her time as garden coordinator, she arranged luncheons and provided garden plots to senior citizens, school-children, and first-time-offenders. In a 1993 interview, she said, “If it hadn’t been for the garden, I’d probably be dead now” (Lundgren 16).

Today, the Schaffer-Miles garden is still active in the same site it began in in the 1940s. Plots can be rented for $7 each during the growing season.

Sources

Bartell, Irma. “Onetime Playhouse Is Being Born Again as a City Landmark.” The Plain Dealer, 1 July 1984, p. 77. NewsBank: America’s News – Historical and Current, Accessed 13 January 2025.

Cleveland Memory Project, Feeding Cleveland Collection. https://www.clevelandmemory.org/feedcleve/

“For Community Gardeners, Their Plots Are Thickening .” The Plain Dealer, 28 Dec. 1986, p. 71. NewsBank: America’s News – Historical and Current, Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.

“I-38 Miles Garden Activities [Streaming Video without Sound] .” Cleveland State University, 1945. Cleveland Memory , https://flash.ulib.csuohio.edu/cmp/feedcleve/cmp-miles.html. Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.

Lanese, Jim. “The Desegregation of Cleveland Public Schools – A 40-Year Struggle for Public School Equity.” Cleveland Historical, Cleveland State University , 3 Oct. 2017, clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/813.

Lundgren, Mary Beth “Green Power.” The Plain Dealer, , 31 Jan. 1993, p. 16. NewsBank: America’s News – Historical and Current, Accessed 13 Jan. 2025.

Roy, Christopher. “Union-Miles Neighborhood .” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case Western Reserve University, 12 Mar. 2022, case.edu/ech/articles/u/union-miles-neighborhood.

“Teachers’ Walkout in Cleveland Shuts Most of the School System.” The New York Times, 19 Oct. 1979, p. 24.

“Urban Gardeners Reap Big Rewards.” The Plain Dealer , 22 Sept. 1984, pp. 78–80. NewsBank: America’s News – Historical and Current, Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.

Young, Paul R. Cleveland, Ohio, 1948. Cleveland Public Library Digital Gallery, Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.

Zverina , Frances. “Landmark Cleveland Loghouse Celebrates Its Rural Past .” The Plain Dealer, 12 Apr. 1991, p. 76. NewsBank: America’s News – Historical and Current, Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.