Community Garden honors Bob Lawton

Members of Sisters Community Garden gathered Saturday for a work party and to bid retiring garden manager Robert “Bob” Lawton farewell.

A cold wind blew, interspersed with snatches of sun and sprinkles of snow. Lawton was presented with a memory book and a golden rake in thanks for all his help and commitment.

“I had a community garden plot in the Portland area; my mom was always a gardener,” Lawton told The Nugget. Growing up, he lived in West Linn, Oregon and Camas, Washington. “My dad worked at a paper mill,” he explained.

Central Oregon was always part of his family’s story. “My parents were both schoolteachers in the mid-1930s in Bend,” he elaborated. “This is where they got to know each other.”

Lawton and his wife lived in the Portland area and bought a second home in Sisters.

“I started seeing what I could grow in the community garden on Adams Street,” he said, “around 2008 maybe.”Two years later, the Lawtons moved to Sisters full-time.