Elsie MacCready, joined our group and quickly became an enthusiastic bonsai
hobbyist after going on a 1977 bonsai tour to Japan just because it sounded interesting.
Elsie and Betty Anne Duff were introduced by AABS member acquaintances just before
this trip. They agreed to share a room and quickly became good friends. In the years that
followed, Elsie was active in our Society serving as an officer and helping out in many
other capacities.
At the same time she also attended regional and national bonsai meetings,
eventually becoming an officer of The American Bonsai Society. Elsie’s family donated
bonsai in the Elsie G. MacCready Memorial Collection at Michigan State University’s
Hidden Lake Gardens to the Gardens after her death in 1987. Memorial donations from
the MacCready family and Elsie’s friends continue to support that collection. The author
of this history has also received some recognition from outside of the local bonsai
community mostly for pioneering efforts in growing small bonsai indoors under cool
white fluorescent lighting.
Excerpted from Looking Back as We Move Ahead: Thirty Years of Ann Arbor Bonsai Society History By Jack Wikle, January 2000