Martha Wilson

Martha Wilson (born April 21, 1931; died March 27, 2008) was a civic and business leader in Gardendale. Wilson was a member of several garden and flower clubs, the Jefferson County Beautification Board and was also a part of the city's America in Bloom beautification efforts.

In 1963, she opened a floral business named Wilson Florist & Gifts. It started out on the family’s front porch in Mt Olive before moving to Fultondale and then to Gardendale in 1988. She built a wedding chapel adjacent to the floral business in 1993.

Wilson was an active Rotarian, was instrumental in forming the city's chamber of commerce and was an organizer of the city's first Magnolia Festival in 2002. In 2008, the Gardendale Area Rotary Club created the Martha Wilson/Rotarian of the Year award in honor of Wilson's many years of service to the club.

For several years, Wilson wrote weekly columns titled "Remembering the Good Old Days", which appeared in the North Jefferson News. Her topic of discussion focused on how residents lived back in the 1940s and 1950s.

Wilson's mother, Pauline Jones, wrote a book in 1976 entitled "This is Gardendale" with a lot of history of the Gardendale area. Wilson wrote and published a 25-year update to her mother's book in 2005 entitled "Gardendale History: The Next 25 Years".

She and her husband, James Wilson, had two daughters, Rosilyn and Anita.

References

• Smith, Adam (March 31, 2008) "Local legend" dies at 76

External Links

• Martha Wilson on FindAGrave.com