One day, some kids ran through and trampled the garden of Sally Wylde's neighbor.
Louise Jackson and Mrs. Wylde didn't yell at the tykes. They invited them to tend the garden.
When a vacant lot on Decatur's Oakview Road became available, Mrs. Wylde and her husband, Robert "Britt" Dean, bought the property and turned it into a community garden.
Today the Oakhurst Community Garden Project, a nonprofit that promotes environmental education for children and adults, encompasses 1.5 acres. Much credit goes to Mrs. Wylde, a 1998 Decatur Hometown Hero.
"She's the founding mother of the garden," said Allison Adams, a former board president. "Sally motivated a whole community. She got individuals to contribute what they had in skills, resources and connections. It was a genuine community project."
In a 2005 article that appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the activist called the in-town oasis a haven away from city life. She also deemed it a political statement.
"Before the garden, I would spend every day so enraged by the environmental policy coming out of Washington," she said at the time. "... I think one of the most subversive things you can do in life is to be engaged, to find ways to make positive change and act on them."
On Aug. 19, Elise "Sally" Sweet Wylde of Decatur died from complications of breast cancer at her home in South Dartmouth, Mass. She was 67. A memorial service will be held in Atlanta at a later date.
Mrs. Wylde was one of six siblings raised in Beverly Farms, Mass. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a master's of fine arts degree from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Her first husband, Cecil Wylde, died in 1987. Years later, the artist and teacher moved to Atlanta, where she earned a master's degree at the Candler School of Theology.
In a sense, Mrs. Wylde's concern for green space and sustainability became her ministry, so the chance to transform a city lot into an urban garden fit. Relatives, though, say she didn't imagine the long-term impact of the south Decatur project.
"I don't think she had any idea what an integral part of the community the garden would become," said a daughter, Michaele Wylde of Brooklyn, N.Y. "She just worked and was the force behind it for many years."
"Her sense was that she'd introduce the vitality of a garden to urban kids," said Mr. Dean, her husband of 14 years, "and help preserve a green area."
The couple met at All Saints' Episcopal Church in 1993. Mrs. Wylde introduced herself as a painter to her future husband, though she didn't truly immerse herself in art until she retired in 2005 as Oakhurst director.
"The garden was her palette in a way," her husband said.
In her final days, the artist enjoyed the rural beauty of her home in Massachusetts, surrounded by family and Red Dog, the mixed breed who appeared on her lawn one day in Decatur.
She also planted a garden with her youngest granddaughter.
Additional survivors include another daughter, Caitlin Wylde of Los Angeles, Calif.; three brothers, Jay Sweet of Essex, Mass., Peter Sweet of Newport, R.I., and Tom Wigglesworth of Beverly Farms, Mass.; two sisters, Pauline Sweet of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Ann Walker of Kansas; and three grandchildren.
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