Heavy Mettle: Amy Angell Collier Montague and Elizabeth Craig Weaver Proctor

January 25, 2022

Two GCA Medals and the Strong Civic-minded Women Behind Them

In July 2021, The Garden Club of America’s newest national committee, the Civic Improvement Committee, became official. Two visionary GCA women, Amy Angell Collier Montague and Elizabeth Craig Weaver Proctor, whose names are each inscribed on a GCA medal, would approve of this strategic focus on civic improvement. 

Each of these women were strong civic leaders who embodied the GCA’s purpose and its commitment to gardening, creating, and advocating on behalf of the interests and concerns of its members via the power of association. 

Amy Angell Collier Montague was a force within the GCA and her community. For many years, Montague was one of the most active members of the Garden Club of Mount Desert. She was its president in 1934 when the club, along with the Piscataqua Garden Club, welcomed the GCA to Maine for its twenty-first annual meeting. 

Mrs. Montague derived great happiness from horticulture, music, and involvement in civic improvement. After her death in 1941, her husband, Gilbert Holland Montague, preserved and cared for her garden in Seal Harbor, Maine — opening it for garden lovers when her superb collection of delphiniums were in bloom. He was very proud of her civic accomplishments, endowing a medal in her memory to be awarded by the GCA. Today, the Amy Angell Collier Montague Medal is awarded to a GCA club member or member club for outstanding civic achievement. The medal, designed by Gertrude K. Lathrop, features delphiniums, lady’s slippers, and dolphins expressing Montague’s love of nature. 

In 1991, Elizabeth Craig Weaver Proctor was awarded the Montague Medal. It was one of her proudest accomplishments and she considered the years she spent working on GCA projects some of her best. In addition to serving and leading multiple GCA efforts, she also wrote the History of the Garden Club of Nashville (2010) and was a strong and respected civic leader in Nashville. She was the force behind the 1968 creation of the Howe Garden at Cheekwood and a later restoration of the garden in 2010. 

The Elizabeth Craig Weaver Proctor Medal is awarded, by specific request, to non-members for exemplary service and creative vision in any field related to The Garden Club of America’s special interests. Endowed by the Elizabeth Craig Weaver Proctor Charitable Foundation in 2003, the medal features the GCA logo lamp on one side and the citation on the other. 

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