Book Review: God Made My Garden Grow

A Book You Can Buy From Me

Book Title: God Made My Garden Grow


Author: Hiram Raymond Florence

Date: 1994

Publisher: H. Raymond Florence

ISBN: none

Length: 206 pages

Illustrations: small black-and-white photos

Quote: "Anything one does for seniors does not go without its reward."

Privately published books seldom get reviews, or marketing. The astute self-publisher will collect money from the limited audience for a book that's worth self-publishing before hiring a printer to bind the book. Occasionally, however, a self-published book gets resold on behalf of a good cause, which is how I found this book. (It's rare, and is available on Amazon for collector prices only.)

This is not a book that would have been extremely profitable for a commercial publisher. It's the nice, bland, non-preachy memories of a nice, bland, Midwestern grandpa who spent a lot of time travelling as a missionary. He remembered a few interesting anecdotes for a general audience, but mostly he just tells us where he's been.

Some of the things Florence tells us may seem hardly worth mention to some readers, but he learned them for the first time as an adult. "Port of Spain in Trinidad...we found...to be English-speaking." If you know anyone who ever lived there, or have read the work of V.S. Naipaul, Shiva Naipaul, or C.L.R. James, this wouldn't have been a surprise to you.

As a memoirist, Florence tries to get all the facts in order, but omits the details. He remembers having met Corrie ten Boom; he doesn't remember anything either of them said. He got into Vietnam in the early 1970s; in the two short paragraphs he's allocated to that tour, he tells us about a mix-up in his plans, and that's all. He has neither an eye for scenery nor an ear for conversation. This gives his memoir the terse, bland, just-the-facts quality of a middle school history book. Some readers might prefer this style to the Paul Theroux school of "travel memoirs should be written like novels" writing.

Florence stayed in the Congo long enough that, when he brought his children back to the United States, they felt out of place in White churches. After that, he was a semi-retired missionary who travelled primarily as a fund raiser. Since he's writing for a Christian audience, he doesn't spend much time expounding the religious beliefs he expects readers to share.

As an individual, he gives us the essential minimum of facts about his early life in Michigan, parents, education, marriage, and children. He was born in 1911. He mentions ten grandchildren and having outlived one of his children, toward the end of the book, but tells us nothing about his medical condition at the time of writing.

Is this book "better" in any way than other missionary memoirs? I couldn't say how. "Worse"? Not really. Some missionaries, like Elisabeth Elliot, happened to have more exciting adventures, and some, like Eric Hare, happened to be livelier storytellers, and others might be said to excel in one way or other. I'm not sure that Florence excels in any particular category. His is a nice, wholesome story with brief moments of conflict or tension that quickly resolve back into the basic theme of "My wife and I have been active Christians for a long time."

God Made My Garden Grow is recommended to anyone who wants to read 206 pages about an active 80-year-old's long happy life and full memory...and nothing in particular about gardening. It's recommended to local readers who can buy my real-world copy much cheaper than the $15 (including shipping) I'd have to charge if you buy it online here.