My mailing Manager, Amy Motsinger brought me this lovely bouquet of Peonies. I mentioned that these were my Mother’s favorite flowers so she wanted me to have this beautiful arrangement that she picked from her yard.
My family, as did many other families, in my childhood had decoration day at the cemetery and then usually a dinner outside at a relative’s house. I loved it because I got to play with all my cousins. Mother grew the Peonies to put on the graves of her parents and other loved ones. She called them “Pineys”. It was not until I was an adult that I knew that they were called Peony. I can remember her say “I sure hope my Pineys are in bloom by decoration day”. The flowers were picked and put into big tubs of water to later be put in vases at the cemetery. My brother-in-law, Delmar Haynes, joked that his job was to carry the tub on decoration day. It is strange how just a flower can invoke memories of childhood. My sisters and I have carried on the tradition of putting the flowers on the graves at Asbury Cemetery but we don’t grow the flowers we buy them from a green house. I wonder if the tradition will continue after we are gone?
Thank you Amy for the lovely flowers and the lovely memory that came with them.
