Great Grandmother’s Peony Bush

June 4, 2019, and Great Grandmother Weaver’s Peony Bush is blooming right on schedule — at least on the schedule I remember my mother defining for it.   The bush was at Great Grandmother’s house on Tireman in Detroit; it was split and moved to my Grandparents’ house on Steel in Detroit; it was split again and moved to my parents house in Lincoln Park; and it was split again and was moved to my house in Novi.  I have always meant to get back to the Lee home on Berg Road in Southfield to see if the same variety was there as well so that I could presume that Great Grandmother took a cutting from her parents’ plant and we could go back even further.

Mom would take blooms from her plant to Grand Lawn Cemetery in Detroit to Great Grandmother’s grave each year.  Some also went to Grandpa’s at Acacia Park since his passing in 1970.

This is a bitter sweet event since the plant coming into full  bloom is very close to my mother’s birthday — today would have been her 96th.   Then 38 years ago, we had another family event, my grandmother, Mom’s mother, died on this date.  Not a good omen as we were planning on meeting to celebrate Mom’s birthday and instead met to discuss the arrangements for Grandma’s funeral.  Every since then we sort of never planned to celebrate on anyone’s actual birthday.  Just to keep the family jinx going, my father’s mother suffered a fatal stroke on his birthday (She did not pass away until the next day).

Grandma and Grandpa share a headstone, they both got the donation of Peony blossoms from Mom.  Mom and Pop share a headstone adjacent to Grandma and Grandpa.  So I will be making my annual delivery in a day or two…..