Longtime Gables resident to be honored at tree-planting ceremony

Beautification of Miami City Cemetery will remember Georgia Pearson
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By Penny Lambeth
May
20
2010

In the past decade, the Miami City Cemetery has been restored to a beautiful botanical garden. The fence has been replaced, lights installed, hundreds of beautiful flowering and native trees planted and maintained, thousands of hours spent by volunteers and students earning community service hours.

One committee member, Mike Mitchell, has repaired more than 60 old headstones. When the restoration first began, Penny Lambeth, chair of the Dade Heritage Trust Committee, contacted Steve Pearson, who headed the City of Miami Beautification Committee. He and George Childs prepared a detailed tree plan to make the old cemetery a showplace.

Through the years with the City Cemetery Restoration Committee spearheading the drive, the place where so many of Miami’s pioneers are resting is now a place of beauty.

This Saturday will be a special day. Steve Pearson is sponsoring a replanting of all the trees that once thrived on the grounds. He is dedicating this major effort in memory of his mother, Georgia Pearson, a Coral Gables resident for more than 35 years.

Georgia was active in and loved the Coral Gables Garden Club, the P.E.O., Beaux
Arts and the Women’s Guild of the University of Miami. She loved plants, and
that love inspired both of her sons, Steve and Scott, to have lifelong passions for plants.

Georgia Stephens came to Miami as a young girl and settled with her parents and sister Betty in the Lemon City area of Miami. She attended Edison High School and then the University of Miami.

Although she knew her future husband, Ray Pearson, at Edison, they started dating when he returned from World War II and then went to the University of Miami School of Law.

They married when he graduated; after Steve was born in 1952, Georgia's father built a home in Morningside for the family, where her other son, Scott, was born in 1956 and where they lived until 1966 when they moved to Pinecrest.

Although she was always active in Methodist church-related activities, she re-immersed herself in various civic groups and activities as her children grew up. One of her accomplishments was to help implement a vibrant adult education program at UM that she was deeply involved in for years. She and Ray moved to Coral Gables in 1977 and lived in a home on the Riviera Golf Course until their deaths.

Tree Planting at Miami City Cemetery
In memory of Georgia Pearson

Saturday, May 22
9 a.m. to noon
1800 NE Second Ave.

Following the planting at approximately 11:30 a.m. Penny Lambeth, Chair, City Cemetery Restoration Committee of the Dade Heritage Trust and board member of TREEmendous Miami, will give a brief talk about Miami's fascinating history and the exciting pioneers who founded it.

TREEmendous Miami is also accepting donations in Georgia's memory to be used to plant additional trees. Checks can be made payable to: TREEmendous Miami and mailed to
P.O. Box 343224, Florida City, FL 33034.

Donation information can also be found at www.treemendousmiami.org