At one end of the house lay a pile of seed catalogs. At the other end of the house puzzles were stacked up on a shelf and one spread out on the big utility table to work on. Never did we think there would be any connection between the two and certainly not a small piece in our family history.
Seed catalogs are something akin to high-potency vitamins taken in wintertime to stave off all sorts of maladies. The high-gloss photographs infuse our brains with energizing colors missed once snow whitens the ground and frigid air turns green into brown. Unique variety names and descriptions replenish our syntaxes that seem to shrivel in winter’s dry air.
We are equally excited over seeing the latest in variety and color and the heirloom varieties making a comeback. An example is roses. In Medway, my hometown, our house on East Main Street had a number of bushes including the beautiful hybrid tea Peace rose. It has been called the most famous rose of the 20th century. Its blooms are large, soft, pale yellow petals edged in pink. It has the sweetest fragrance and was my dad’s favorite rose.
My favorite rose from that childhood home was the Cabbage rose which grew along the back west wall of the garage. Mounds of pinkish white blooms gave off the most enticing scent and were our favorites for cutting. Cabbage roses go as far back as the 17th century, related to the damask rose.
Later when we lived on West Main, Dad planted the Peace rose along with a pink hybrid tea whose name has long been forgotten. Yellow, pink and red roses were also in attendance in both homes.
Being aware of my inherited love of roses, catalogs and history, my husband brought home a Smithsonian Seed Catalogue Collection puzzle that included nine framed late 19th century catalogs including some that featured roses. The surprise came when the puzzle was examined. Two of the frames held roses from Springfield Ohio.
The George H. Mellen Company’s 1898 catalog bearing the Innisfallen Greenhouses logo featured the Mosella rose. Creamy white petals with hints of yellow and a deep orangish yellow center made a gorgeous bowlful for the front cover. McGregor Brothers’ 1898 catalog was titled Floral Gems and included pink and red roses.
Springfield, Ohio was known back then as the rose capital of the world. Numerous greenhouse businesses in and around the city made it their specialty to grow and ship rose bushes around the world at unheard of low prices. One ad in the Western Garden and Poultry Journal of 1892 ran an ad from the Champion Greenhouses owned by Good & Reese Company. The buyer could have twenty rose bushes shipped to them for $1.00. Testimonials accompanied many of the ads, all stating the “green-ready to plant” condition of the product.
Good & Reese roses were grown on acres of land for decades. Old newspapers were keen to note men who came in from far and wide to work at the greenhouses. John Summers was working for them in 1905, along with Archie Taggert. In later years, Clyde Dewey Lytle worked there. And that is where family history opened up. Clyde was my grandfather whom I do not recall having ever met. He and my grandmother were divorced long before I was born. But I can recall my mother describing the greenhouses, the acres of rose bushes and the pleasant times walking through the rows of flowering plants.
By 1920, Good & Reese also were keen developers of Peonies. In their ad of 1920 in the Garden Magazine, referring to their fields under cultivation we find “We recall the glories of our acres last June. We remember the avalanches of beauty that nearly swept us off our feet. And we are ready now to share Peonies with you.”
We can well remember last June’s blooms in the flower beds here and around the area. Yes, they too held avalanches of beauty, sometimes nearly sweeping us off our feet. While seed catalogs and puzzles keep us going this winter, it is the hope of this coming spring’s all things green and colorful that holds us together and pushes us forward through time and dry winter air.
Next week we’ll look at a testimony from C. D. Campbell as to the magnitude of Good and Reese’s Champion City Greenhouses in 1900.
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