with Connie Hilker.

Program details will be added soon.

Connie Hilker has always been fascinated by plants and history.  As a child, she loved to read books with stories about historic places and people.  As a young mother, she and her three daughters often went on adventures to visit historic homes, museums, gardens, and cemeteries.  If someone asks Connie about what she does for a living, her answer is always “professional volunteer.”  She attended college and planned to become a teacher, but decided that stay-at-home-mom was her best and most rewarding career choice.  Some of her volunteer ‘jobs’ were Girl Scout leader, Master Gardener, vice president of the local chapter of ReBuilding Together, president of a homeowner’s association, and greyhound adoption representative.  Connie currently volunteers to manage the documentation, preservation and restoration of the historic rose collection at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia; as the rose consultant for the Center for Historic Plants at Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia; and President of the Stafford County Historical Society.  She can often be found visiting cemeteries, house museums, and old home sites; traveling and presenting programs about rose history, care and propagation; or quietly working in her own garden.

Connie loves to use tools and to design and build things.  In the early 1970’s, Connie was the first girl in the Fort Benning, Georgia, school system to take eighth grade shop class.  She puts her building skills to good use as she and her husband, Steve, restore their historic home (Hartwood Manor, a brick Gothic Revival farmhouse built in 1848), renovate the outbuildings, and design the gardens on their nine-acre property.  Connie uses her garden as a place to collect and preserve antique rose varieties that are in danger of being lost.  She has an eclectic collection of over 500 roses, many of which were propagated from historic sites as part of her preservation efforts.

This presentation will also be live streamed via Facebook. To view the presentation from Facebook, go to https://www.facebook.com/StaffordHistory. You should see the live feed listed at the top of the posts. If not, you may need to refresh your page.