Freeholder candidate has roots that run deep in Bergen County

Bernadette Walsh campaigning with Congressmen Scott Garrett

Freeholder candidate has roots that run deep in Bergen County

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014, 3:20 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2014, 3:34 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

To understand Bernadette Walsh, one of two Republican candidates for Bergen County freeholder, it helps to know the story of the “bamboo man.”

That’s the nickname her late father, James Coghlan, picked up in the 1960s when he and his wife, Mary, cultivated bamboo as part of their greenhouse nursery business in Upper Saddle River.

They grew and sold bamboo to people like the philanthropist Doris Duke and to places like the now defunct Jungle Habitat in West Milford and the Polynesian exhibition at the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Queens.

James Coghlan wrote a book in 1965 called “The Story of Bamboo.” The couple even made an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.

Walsh was a small child when her parents closed the nursery to instead run a real estate and appraisal business near the train station in Ramsey for 25 years.

But their daughter recalled that time while talking about what she considers her proudest accomplishment in her four years as a Ridgewood councilwoman.

The self-described “tree hugger” helped revive the borough’s Shade Tree Commission, which had been dormant for many years. After Hurricanes Irene and Sandy toppled about 500 trees in town, Walsh said, people felt a need to be planting trees again.

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