Secret Garden owner leads not-so-secret second life

By Linda Alice Dewey
Sun contributor

Perhaps you were listening to Michigan Public Radio’s “Stateside” last winter, when an expert from Michigan State University (MSU) weighed in on the day’s topic — music education. That voice may have sounded familiar, especially to Empire residents. It belonged to Cynthia Taggart, Ph.D., who is world-renowned on the subject. Taggart also owns the Secret Garden gift shop, a place to find one-of-a-kind artisan items in Empire.

“People see the store here and assume that it’s my life,” she says with enthusiasm, “but what I do here is for fun. Mostly, my professional life.” She pauses, takes a big breath, then begins again. “This has been a big year for me.”

Indeed. A leader in early childhood music education with former doctoral students at universities all over the world, Taggart has just won two top education honors. She is the 2015 Michigan Music Educators Association (MMEA) Music Teacher of the Year. In addition, MSU has given her the Outstanding Faculty (Beal) Award for this academic year.

Several things about Taggart make her a standout. First, she actually teaches the subject about which she preaches. She has two preschool classes where she models skills for her college students. Here, she stresses playfulness — a theme that runs throughout her life. “Children learn through play,” she says, so her “classes are very playful. There is no expectation for ‘correctness;’ they just pick it up naturally.”

Taggart is adamant about the uselessness of standardized testing and argues that high test scores are, in the long run, meaningless. “The solution is to provide children with a flexible well-rounded education that includes all of the arts and science and social studies, all of which are being pushed out because math, reading and writing are tested.”

Her activism speaks volumes. This month, she speaks in China in an effort to build a relationship between the Shanghai Music Conservancy and MSU. She is also a spokesperson for the MSU Music Ed department in this country. “There’s a big gap between how music is taught in schools versus how it is living in the lives of students,” she explains. “We are working hard to learn to bridge that gap.”

She feels strongly about where she has worked for the past 23 years. “MSU really is one of the best Music Ed places in the country at this point,” she affirms. Taggart, a past MSU Music Ed department head, also serves on numerous faculty committees, including the steering committee and the Faculty Senate, which is the university’s main governing body. “I’m busy,” she chuckles. “I commit, and I commit big.

“I sometimes think people [here] think of me as this Secret Garden Shopkeeper and don’t realize that I have this other life,” she observes; while, at the same time, “people at school think of me as that very committed faculty member without realizing that I have this whole other life Up North!”

Originally from Wisconsin, Taggart received her BA and Masters from the University of Michigan (U-M) and her Ph.D from Temple University in Philadelphia. Her husband, Bruce, is from Ann Arbor and teaches Music Theory at MSU. “I’m so lucky to have met Bruce,” she says, whom she met at U-M. “He has let me follow my pathway and been there to support me all the way.”

So how did they get to Empire? Beginning in the mid-’70s, “Bruce’s mom had a place in Glen Arbor down from the beach, where she spent her summers,” Taggart says. At that time, Taggart worked in Dorr County at a friend’s store in the summertime. There, she learned the business. At the end of each summer, she and Bruce took the ferry and headed to Glen Arbor. When the friend sold her store, working there just wasn’t the same, so the couple decided on a whim to look for a building when they were visiting this area.

Two days later, they bought one. That was in 1987. Taggart opened the Secret Garden the next summer. Pregnant with their first child, she worked seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. “I’ve had a life of biting off more than I can chew,” she laughs. “I tend to do things big.” The family lived in two rooms above the store for the summers until that first son was two.

Now, with their sons grown (both look forward to receiving Ph.Ds), the couple lives five doors down from the Front Street shop. And yes, there is a garden behind the store that you can reach only by walking through to the back door. She also has hired help at the store and is able to take a little time for herself, but she hasn’t slowed down. No way. The couple travels. She also bikes daily. “The Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail has changed my life,” she exclaims. “What a wonderful, wonderful resource!” Taggart, who was not a biker until just before the trail opened, put 1,100 miles on her bike last year from May to September, biking it 17 miles a day. “You ride that Heritage Trail and drive around and think, ‘How fortunate I am to be surrounded by this beauty’.”

Taggart calls her garden, her store and her biking her “summer mental health activities.” She loves the shop, which she named after the book, and fills it with contemporary American items handcrafted by over 200 artists. “We work really hard to have it be playful,” she says. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously.” This may be the key to her vibrant being and her success in life. “It brings me joy. I sit here putting price tags on earrings, because I love to do it.” Prices range from $1 to $1,000, but most are in the $13 to $30-something price range. “I want every person who comes in to be drawn to something and be able to afford something,” she states.

The store is open from May 1 to January 1, though they only break even after the color season. “The fact that it provides employment for the people that I care about makes the fact that I might not make money at those times immaterial,” she explains.

Taggart has developed a relationship with her clients over the past 27 years. “It’s really cool,” she comments. “Customers who came as kids are now bringing their kids to the store. Daughters are bringing their elderly mothers, because shopping there was an important touchstone of their time of being together,” she says. Emotion wells up, then tears break through. “Daughters come back after the mother passes, remembering that time. So it’s become kind of a family thing. Not just for our family,” she clarifies. “It’s fun to have it shared across generations.”

The Secret Garden, located at 10206 W. Front Street in Empire, is open 10-5 daily in May and from September through December. During the summer months, it is open 10-8 Monday through Saturday and 10-5 on Sundays. Be sure to walk through to Cindy’s garden in back when you visit, and wave when you see her biking the trail.