May 23, 2025
One of my earliest memories is the yellow roses that grew at our town cemetery. This is where my grandparents, great grandparents and assorted aunts, uncles and cousins are buried. Every Memorial Day, we visited the cemetery.
It was overrun with cheat grass and cacti, but here and there a huge clump of rose briars survived in the dry, sandy soil. In May, the prickly bushes would be covered with semi-double yellow blossoms. I would always brave the thorns to pick a handful of roses to place on my grandparents’ graves.
I had no idea what the name of those roses was, but I noticed that many of the older houses in town also had clumps of them in their yards. The house where my great grandmother Maria Lindberg Fernelius had lived had a huge bush leaning over the fence.
When I grew up, I fell in love with genealogy. I delved into the stories of my ancestors’ lives – including that great grandmother of the yellow roses. I found several biographical sketches about her in the Special Collections of the University of Utah Marriott Library. The sketches all mentioned that my Great Grandmother Fernelius loved flowers, especially yellow roses.
I, too, loved flowers and decided that I needed to find out the name of the rose my great grandmother had loved so much. By then, the cemetery where I’d picked the yellow roses had become gentrified, and the yellow roses were long gone. Most of the older houses had been replaced by newer ones. They had small yards unsuited to huge brambly rosebushes.
However, I’m a genealogist so I decided to do what I do best: research. I found out that the yellow roses were called Harrison’s (or Harison’s) yellow. They had been hybridized in the 1830s by a reclusive bachelor lawyer from New York City named George Folliott Harison. A plantsman from the same area took cuttings and released the rose to nurseries.
The rose became very popular since yellow was an unusual color for roses at the time. It was also a very tough bush, so tough that cuttings were carried along in the wagons that headed west. The rose thrived wherever it was planted, and it became known as the Oregon Trail Rose and the Yellow Rose of Texas. Bushes can be found all over the West, particularly in harsh areas where other roses won’t grow. It seems to thrive on neglect and bloom every year in deserted farmyards and along roadsides.
If your ancestors came from anywhere in the West, chances are that your ancestors grew Harison’s Yellow roses too. Nowadays, Harison’s Yellow is available at many plant nurseries. If you buy one, you will have a living memorial to your ancestors.
Every year around Memorial Day, the roses will put on a show of yellow blooms. People will stop on their walks and ask you what that spectacular plant is. I know because I have a couple of Harison’s Yellow Roses, just like my great grandmother did. They’re my favorite flowers too.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society