Faith Steed Howarth

[Mom's love of flowers explained]

They had a most beautiful garden. She was a flower person [Aunt Fanny Meadows, Mom's father's sister]. They had no children, so their name doesn't come down much. But, she was a wonderful woman. She was at our place a lot. She talked to us. She was good with children. We could go over there anytime we pleased. We didn't do a lot of it. We didn't want to bother her and that.

That place over there was almost like home to me 'cause we were there a lot during the picking season. If we picked well, he paid us the same as he would others. We did, we worked hard. Anyway, she had these beautiful, beautiful roses and these beautiful flowers. Mother had a nice little garden too. And, so, I've always had roses and flowers.

Then, after we got married - I don't really know how I got so interested in the Iris business. But, for some reason or other, I got very interested in that and a lot of the people did at that time. I can't remember whether there was a club or some association that we were all in and every year they had a big it was just part of the big downtown buildings. They'd have displays and all these things.

Well, I just little by little got into it. Lucy, my sister, she was very interested too. Now, this has come out because of my visit to this really beautiful Iris garden that her son has now. Now, while she was living, he didn't care too much about it. But, when they were changing the property after she died, he took a few of the iris and took them over to - he bought a big piece of land over out nowhere, where there was nothing but this one little house. You should see it, it's crowded with nice new homes.

I think he's a wealthy man now. Wasn't that lucky? He wasn't a very pushy man. Awfully nice one, though. He's the one her second husband was so mean with. That little kid was so scared of him, held pull his hair out by the roots. It was pitiful. I used to really get me down. That's why she [Lucy] had to - he was all right with the girl, but he was mean to that boy. He was just a little very, very shy little boy.

She - Lucy and I - got into it so we - she had hers and I had mine. I'd go up, and see hers and she'd come up, and see mine. She'd come down. Of course, she was alone, you know. She lived with them, but she was alone. She'd come down and stay at my place. She just really enjoyed it. We'd sit and talk and we'd go out a look at our flowers. I got real interested. There are books you can get on it. Each year I would improve the ones I had. You know, I would improve. I'd get one or two new ones. So, then there'd get to be a whole bunch of people who were very interested.

That's what we did. We enjoyed the iris. It made the place very beautiful, but they're gone now. Someone else wouldn't take care of them. Daddy made me that beautiful rose garden, you know. It was so wonderful, you know, because it was surrounded by cement with little paths through it. It was so easy and fun. You didn't even get weeds near as much like as this even out here does because it was kind of protected. We had roses and iris and lots of nice shrubs.

The iris - I didn't know its name. It wasn't anything. When I took them in to the big show that they had. It was amazing. I've still got a Blue Ribbon and I took the Sweepstakes. But, it was mostly, I think, because a lot of mine were very new kinds. A lot of people didn't grow them. But there were a lot of places around in south where men were raising iris. Oh, it was so much fun to go and see all those beautiful plants. As soon as you see them, you want them, you know. But, it was fun. It was lovely that Lucy and I had it. It was good for both of us.