It was nice to get over to the greenhouse at the high school to see what plants the students had selected for this year. I was there on the day they opened but there happened to be too many people for me. I just went to the Polo Women’s Garden group for two phlox plants.
Shortly after we moved to town I got a Starfire phlox plant at one of their sales and it has been beautiful all these years. Then this winter my original clump died and it needed to be replaced. A couple of smaller ones have started nearby but they will need to grow.
When I moved here Bob and Thelma Jones already had lots of flowers and by the time I added my grandmother’s iris and her black-eyed Susan clumps it would seem I have plenty. I worked with my grandmother in her flower beds and have many memories of those days.
I need to check Henry School to see how flower beds look there since we have had lots of rain. Someone handles our beds at Aplington House and they look good. The fence at Aplington House is in bad shape and needs to be redone. When Paul put that fence in it was made of Cyprus wood and he said, “It will last a 100 years.” I do not think it has been that many years and it needs attention.
The weather has also been chilly to be out planting and we seem to be having some late frost. My apple trees did not get a chance to bloom this year and they have always been so very beautiful. So I try not to be in a hurry.
Our next program for the Polo Historical Society will be June 3 and it will be a travelogue of Portugal, Gibraltar, Barcelona, Athens, France, Italy and Greece. The program will start at 7 p.m. and we will also show you the 1906 wedding dress of Fannie Schryver. We have hardly touched it ourselves so I am interested in seeing the whole dress out of the box.
I have finished the script for our “A Walking Tour of Zenas Aplington’s Neighborhood” for June 20. The tours will be at 1, 2 and 3 p.m. with Beth as your tour guide. We hope Caroline Aplington will be available to say hello and show off some of her outfits. I wonder what she wore when she helped break open some of the whiskey kegs in the “Polo Whiskey Raid of 1856.” She may not want to tell that story. Her buddy in the raid was Maria Waterbury, along with 20 some others all wearing their hats as they marched along Polo.
There were threats that they would be arrested but who was going to arrest 30 Polo women when most in the town were against the sale of intoxicating beverages. So the young women marched home singing as they went and the story was written in Polo history books for all of us to read in later years.
Betty Obendorf is a historian for the Polo Historical Society.