For parents teaching their children to garden, it is hard to compete with the apps on their tablets and phones, such as “Farmville” and “Grow A Garden,” that grow plants and communities seemingly overnight.
It was Austen Riggs who brought the Coonley family to the Berkshires. Riggs founded his therapeutic community in 1919. Mary Lord Coonley was on the first board of trustees.
In 1970, she went to the Berkshires to participate in the Music Theater Group where she continued to spend summers, alternating with Key West winters, for the next 45 years.