cover story The flower lovers negotiated a longterm lease for the land with the city in 1994 and began their crusade to turn garbage into gardens. “They would bring plants in the trunks of their cars,” says Spencer Crews, executive director of Lauritzen Gardens, Omaha’s Botanical Center, since 1996. “The garden got started by people like Hani sharing their passion.” Crews remembers a rainy and cold fall day when he, Hani, and several of her daughters planted daffodil bulbs. Those daffodils are still around more than a dozen years later, part of one of the 15 garden areas. In 1997, Hani and Fran Dowd organized a lunch for their friend, Kimball Lauritzen. “I told Kim (l-r) nancy ryan, liz ryan, mary Connor, hani Kenefick, mary Ferer what we were trying to do,” Hani says. “And she offered to help.” Crews recalls that Lauritzen became enthused and passionate about the project and said, “Let’s get this done.” The Omaha Botanical Garden’s 32,000-square-foot visitor and education center and expanded gardens were dedicated in October 2001. They were named in recognition of the Lauritzen family’s generous contribution. Kim Lauritzen, wife of First National Bank Chairman Bruce Lauritzen, died in 2008. The oak-paneled Helen Kenefick Community Room in the new visitors’ center was named for Hani. Helen is her legal name. The dedicated volunteer and long-time board member is now a board member emeritus, but continues to be active. A member of the Loveland Garden Club, Hani maintains a greenhouse at her home.
Hani’s daughters have been generous supporters of the garden and have worked with their mother on many events, says Crews. “They come down and volunteer for planting projects. When we have a mass appeal for volunteers, they come forward.” “Our family has worked on Lauritzen Garden’s Antique and Garden Show every September for five years,” says daughter Mary Ferer. She says she has learned from her mother the importance of volunteering. “She still hasn’t slowed down.” Hani was a widow with four teenagers when she married John Kenefick 35 years ago. Her son, John Ryan, lives in Portland, Maine. Her other daughters, Elizabeth and Nancy Ryan, also live in Omaha, as does her stepdaughter, John Kenefick’s daughter, Mary Connor. Hani has served on numerous nonprofit boards. She is a longtime volunteer at the Henry Doorly Zoo. A donation from Hani and John Kenefick helped make possible the zoo’s Garden of the Senses, which opened in 1998. Dr. Lee Simmons remembers Hani traveling on zoo-sponsored trips, including roughing it in East Africa where the group slept in tents. “She’s a real trouper and game for about anything,” says Simmons, chairman of the Omaha Zoo Foundation. “In Borneo, we were climbing a mountain in the rain, and Hani was right there with us.” Her husband retired in 1986 as vice chairman and CEO of the Union Pacific Corporation. The family traveled frequently in private railroad cars across the country during his time as Union Pacific’s top executive. After his retirement, John and Hani found time to travel the world together. When Kenefick Park, then located near Omaha’s airport, was displaced by riverfront development, two historical Union Pacific locomotives on display there --- the Centennial No. 6900, the largest and most powerful diesel-electric locomotive built, and Big Boy No. 4023, the world’s largest steam locomotive --- were stored on Union Pacific rails near Durham Museum. The giant machines needed a new home. So they were moved to a three-acre site, which is part of 40 acres that had been bought and donated earlier to Lauritzen Gardens by John and Hani Kenefick. When it came time to move two of America’s longest locomotives to their new home near Lauritzen Gardens, people lined both sides of 10th Street to watch. The parade of locomotives made such an amazing sight that the BBC network shot film of the move as part of a documentary, “Mega Moves,” that aired on the Discovery Channel. The park was dedicated in October 2005. Union Pacific underwrote the costs to move the locomotives and to maintain Kenefick Park. There is no admission charge to visit Kenefick Park, which shares the same hours of operation as Lauritzen Gardens. For information, go to omahabotanicalgardens.org or call 402346-4002. Hani still has dreams. “I want to go to Egypt,” says the spry octogenarian. “And I want to see a large greenhouse-conservatory built at Lauritzen Gardens.” the encounter | september/october 2009 15