Chesapeake Bay Foundation

2007 Eloise Payne Luquer Medal

Accepted by William Baker, The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is in its fortieth year of operation, supported by 180,000 members from every state and 14 foreign countries. They raise and spend twenty million dollars annually identifying problems and developing consensus based solutions throughout the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed focusing on fighting pollution, enhancing quality of life, working with landowners to restore critical habitat, rewarding farmers for conservation efforts, creating dedicated funds for Bay restoration and educating future generations.

Proposed by: Amateur Gardeners Club, Zone VI

The Eloise Payne Luquer Medal is awarded for special achievement in the field of botany that may include medical research, the fine arts, or education. The interpretation of the award is to be elastic and imaginative.

Eloise Payne Luquer (1862–1947) was a founder of the Bedford Garden Club, Zone III, GCA Conservation Committee chair (1929–36), and 1936 recipient of the GCA’s Achievement Medal. Eloise was a botanist, naturalist, lecturer, and wildflower painter. Her wide-ranging interests encompassed work with the District Nursing Association of Northwestern Westchester County, the establishment of the Trailside Nature Museum and nature trails at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, and teaching gardening at the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills. The medal was designed in 1949 by sculptor Chester Beach and endowed by Bedford Garden Club in memory of their distinguished member.

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