June 7, 2024
The peonies all over town are in full bloom now. This is a good year for them, and it seems as if nearly every yard has a clump of the white, pink, red or yellow beauties.
Peonies have always been showy yard flowers, but they have also been grown for a purpose. Peonies flower once a year in late May or early June. This has made them perfect for decorating graves on Memorial Day.
In earlier times, folks planted these bushy flowers on the graves of loved ones. That way the graves would be decorated with their huge flowers in time for what was usually called Decoration Day. Peonies can live for a hundred years or more. Folks felt they were planting a decoration that would still be on a loved one’s grave even after the family had died out or moved away.
In addition to planting peonies on graves, many people planted them in their yards. They were gorgeous in bloom, but they made an ideal cut flower to take to the cemetery. Placed in an old Mason jar with water, the flowers could last for a week or more.
Some people who really weren’t gardeners otherwise planted a row or two of peonies in their vegetable garden. I can remember my childhood neighbors who had two long rows of peonies next to their orchard. They were a beautiful pale pink and made a great show when they bloomed. My neighbor told me, though, that she didn’t plant them because they were pretty. She planted them so that she’d have something to cut to take to family graves on Memorial Day.
She wasn’t the only one to do this. My favorite peony memory is of my Uncle Wilbert’s flowers. Wilbert was my mother’s older brother. My mother idolized him. If she thought a man or a boy was handsome and a good person, she’d say, “You look and act just like Wilbert.” To her it was the greatest compliment she could give someone.
Sadly, Wilbert and his wife Helen lost their oldest child Larry in a traffic accident when he was nine. I don’t think they ever really recovered. Many years after his son’s death, Wilbert told me that he’d felt he had to do something to memorialize him. He realized that the only thing he could do was to grow flowers to put on the boy’s grave every Memorial Day. He planted a few peony bushes to make sure he always had flowers to take to the cemetery.
Over the years the peonies spread and Uncle Wilbert planted more. Eventually, he had a half an acre of nothing but beautiful peonies. The choicest blooms always went to Larry’s grave, but as the years passed, his parents, some of his siblings and even his wife joined Larry in the cemetery. Wilbert just kept growing his peonies.
The last time I visited with Uncle Wilbert we talked about his peonies. He was in his nineties and was still independent and still growing his peonies. His grandchildren helped him, but he picked flowers for Memorial Day every year.
Soon after that visit, Uncle Wilbert fell. He never recovered and died within a short time. He’s buried near his little son and the rest of his family. I don’t live in Utah now and rarely make it home for Memorial Day, so I don’t know if Wilbert’s family still brings peonies to the family graves. I hope they do.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society