Mynelle Westbrook Green Hayward, Kappa Delta, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2023

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Mynelle Westbrook (Green Hayward), horticulturalist and garden enthusiast, was born in 1902 in Kentwood, Louisiana, and moved to Jackson, Mississippi, when she was a young child. She attended Mississippi State College for Women and Millsaps College. In 1920, she became a member of Kappa Delta at Millsaps.

The Millsaps chapter update in a 1921 Angelos of Kappa Delta noted that she and a few of her friends were:

just staying at home (Jackson) and enjoying life. Being young in years and Kappa Delta life, they are more a part of the active than the alumnae chapter but belong practically to both. Mynelle expects to go somewhere to study art after Christmas.

It does not appear that she went anywhere to study art after Christmas. She married Joseph C. Green in 1922 and they had two daughters, Gwynn, who became a Chi Omega, and Jonelle. The family lived in the home they called Greenbrook. It was near Mynelle’s parents’ home, Westbrook, built in the 1920s with Mediterranean features. She began planting and tending gardens on the seven acres of property where both homes were located. The property took on the name Mynelle’s Gardens.

In the 1920s, she along with her mother Alice Westbrook, established Greenbrook Flowers, a business still operating today in Jackson.

Joe Green died in 1947 at the age of 50. Harold “Hal” E. Hayward of Evanston, Illinois, became her husband on September 11, 1948. The ceremony took place at the bride’s home in Jackson. Dr. William B. Selah of the Galloway Memorial Methodist Church married the couple in front of the mantle decorated with magnolia leaves and gladioli along with green and yellow chrysanthemums. The bride chose a green wool suit as her bridal outfit and wore a coral hat of coral trimmed with feathers. The couple lived in Evanston after the marriage, but at some point they made their way back to Jackson. Hayward, a Sigma Chi at the University of Illinois, died on September 16, 1980.

Mynelle was described in a newspaper article as “small, dark and extremely pretty woman whose vivacity and charm can never be captured by a camera. Brimful of energy and effervescing with enthusiasm, her animation and interest sparkles in her eyes, vibrate in her voice and explode in the quick motions of her head and hands.”

In 1953 she opened gift shop called Mynelle’s, in Jackson. She helped found the City Beautiful Commission, which is now Keep Jackson Beautiful.

Clarion–Ledger, May 14, 1954

Clarion-Ledger, August 5, 1956

She had an intense interest in horticulture and served as a national judge for the Camelia Society. A member of the Hemerocallis Society, she also served as chair of the International Hemerocallis Society. In addition she was a hybridizer of rare day lilies; her most famous daylily was the starfish, which won a national award in 1980. She taught floral designed and appeared on television speaking about it.

Clarion-Ledger, May 25, 1956

Although Mynelle Gardens was often used for charity functions in the 1940s, it was opened to the public in 1951. In 1973, it was deed to the City of Jackson and became a public park.

Clarion Ledger, April 6, 1969

Mynelle Day September Fest took place on Sunday, September 30, 1990. It marked the 17^th anniversary of the gardens being sold to the city. Mynelle Westbrook Green Hayward died on August 26, 1994 at the age of 92.

In 1990, she talked about her love of horticulture, “Plants are like friends – they are, they are – and very good ones, too.” She added, “I was born loving plants, I didn’t mind dirty hands.” Mynelle’s legacy, her gardens, remains a part of the Jackson community.