Mike Unser writes for the AIS blog, and he regularly tells the stories of individual historic irises. His 'Iris Classics' posts are the ones with the individual stories. They are fun posts.
Renee

Here is a link that might be useful: Iris Classics: Wabash

One of my favorite stories is that of 'Debby Rairdon" which was created by a backyard hybridizer. It is often used as an encouragement to those of us who are short on land but love to dabble with pollen & seedlings.

If you have access to old IRIS Bulletins you can find some more of these stories. Also the book "The World of Iris" is a great resource with some of the older histories of both the flowers and the hybridizers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Debby Rairdon