As the 50th anniversary of her East Cobb business approached earlier this year, Diane Spencer couldn’t help but think of her late sister.
“Sunny” Walker wasn’t just a family member but a business partner at Frameworks Gallery at Woodlawn Square Shopping Center on Johnson Ferry Road.
Walker, who died in 2019, also was a leading figure in the creation of East Cobb’s first passive park.
As an inaugural board member and later president of the volunteer group Friends for the East Cobb Park, Walker was heavily involved in the efforts to identify, purchase and convert land on Roswell Road, along Sewell Mill Creek, into what’s become one of the most popular parks in Cobb County.
The 20 acres that make up the park once was farmland, then became the home to Bowles Oil Company.
The park features multi-use trails, playgrounds, grassy recreational space, pavilions and a concert shell. Events include regular musical concerts, holiday celebrations and a Veterans Day salute.
More than anything, Walker and those behind the park’s creation simply wanted a place in the community where people could gather, recreate and enjoy natural beauty.
“There was no central gathering place” in East Cobb, Spencer said. Her sister “envisioned this very much being a community gathering place.”
Those leading the Friends group now are working to enhance the vision of the 21-year-old park. Last year, the East Cobb Park Garden Club was formed, with the goal of beautifying the park.
Its first project was seeding natural plants and perennial flower beds.
Now, the club will be taking on a major improvement, in honor of Sunny Walker.
A portion of greenspace below the gazebo overlooking the back quad of the park will be carved out to create what Spencer calls “Sunny’s Butterfly Park.”
Kurt von Borries, the group’s current president, came up with the idea when Spencer approached him about doing something to honor her sister.
“It’s totally appropriate for Sunny and the park,” she said.
It will be an all-season garden featuring more than two dozen types of flowers, covering several hundred square feet. The garden is being designed by Lyn Cohen, head of the East Cobb Park Garden Club, who’s a professional landscape architect.
To be planted include redbuds, Black-Eyed Susans, daffodils, hydrangeas and other varietals.
“It’s really a pollinator garden,” Spencer said, explaining the origins of the garden’s name. “But that doesn’t sound as good as butterfly garden.”
Cohen’s company, SiteOne Landscape Supply, is donating stone, mulch and some other materials. Two Japanese maple trees also will be donated, according to von Borries.
But between $10,000 to $15,000 needs to be raised to purchase and plant the flowers, and to build out and maintain the garden. The work is expected to get underway later this spring, with completion aimed for the fall.
To that effort, Spencer is holding a fundraising open house at Frameworks next week, donating between 30 to 100 percent of whatever she sells in the store for the garden.
The hours for the open house are from 4-8 p.m. Thursday, April 25, and during store hours Friday-Saturday April 26-27 from 10-6 (1205 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 110).
Frameworks features painting, sculpture and ceramics made by local and Georgia artists. Spencer said some of them agreed to donate their works for the fundraiser.
(Anyone can donate at anytime online, in an amount of their choosing, by clicking here. Checks should be made out to Friends for the East Cobb Park.)
Von Borries admitted that “it’s going to be a challenge” to maintain the garden, which will be the major project of the garden club.
Long-term, he’s hopeful that East Cobb Park could someday include a botanical garden.
“We’re just trying to beautify the park,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of land to work with.”
Walker was previously honored in 2017 with a piano named after her at the gazebo, but which has since been removed. There’s also a bridge named after her connecting the current park to its newer space extending toward Fullers Park.
Spencer said the garden is the perfect way to honor her memory.
“This is kind of a personal thing,” she said. “There are so many people who knew and loved Sunny.
“This is a prime example of what can be done with this park. Sunny would have envisioned that. I think that’s what she would want to see. I think this will be a milestone for the park.”
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