Well said, Lisa.

Thank you for sharing your story Lisa. Its beautiful. I do hope you can find Grandma's rose one day.

I agree with you. I am lucky to have several roses which have been growing in our garden for 80-100 years. I have rooted all of the old ones several times, and passed them on to my SIL, and three nieces on that side of the family, as "family heirlooms". Good to wait until they are in their 30s and have houses and gardens. Total ignorance is overcome in my case by their interest in a rose which was originally planted by their great great grandfather! I start them out with one, and so far 3 of them have gotten interested in other roses.

Jackie

So lovely Lisa. I too would have loved bits of my grandparents yard in Berkeley. The bougainvilla there fascinated me and I played with the paper flowers for hours. My dad buried jars of Indian head pennies in that yard, someone will someday find treasure if they haven't already! Treasure the memories and if you come across those roses you will know! I'm still seeking a pink pouf of a rose at my first home, the only thing alive in the yard when my husband & I moved there. I've bought many pink roses to see if they are it but so far no go. The house was built in the 40s. May have been a seedling. The rose is gone as I drove by to look if I could ask the current owners for a cutting. I love the history as much as the roses I am collecting now and tell the stories often when I post them on other venues. It has gotten me wondering if I should go up to Oregon and see the pioneer cemeteries my great-grandparents are buried in and their homesteads. Perhaps something is left.

It is a nice idea if you have the right kids. My son has only a mild interest in old things of the family, and my daughters have no interest at all. They all loved their grandparents dearly and enjoy the photobooks I made for them, but as for possessions from the past, they have no interest whatsoever.

My younger daughter calls antiques "Dead People's Furniture". And she shudders when she says it.

Odd for me to have had such children, very satisfactory in other ways. I myself have a strong streak of nostalgia.

I have to admit that my experience of my grandparents' roses was different; they grew HT's and or Floribundas that I'm sure they must've sprayed regularly. They were orangey pinks, weird yellows and salmons; colors that I didn't like then, and still don't care for now. I hope it's okay to admit here on the Antique Roses forum that I'm still not crazy about most of those mid-century roses- at least not as garden plants...

It's likely that the impression I had for most of my life that roses were far more trouble than they were worth was shaped by those roses, although I'm sure they enjoyed them and found them worthwhile.

They did, however, have a huge and glorious yellow fountaining "Lady Banksia" rose, and I loved to visit (they lived about 2 hours' drive away) when it was in bloom. I now have about 6-8 Lady Banksia roses that I grew from cuttings I got from a gardening friend. Once they have all bloomed and I can sort them by color, I can keep one yellow and one white, then give the others away.

I was impressed and delighted to recently find out my mother has a 'Betty Sheffield Supreme' camellia grown from a cutting from my grandparents' yard; I will take cuttings from her plant this year, and I am pretty pleased to think that I can have a garden keepsake from their yard.

I do hope you someday find those roses you should have inherited but didn't; especially that evocatively named "Garage Coverer". Even if you don't have a garage that needs covering, you still need that rose... Have you looked at old family photos to see if you get any glimpses of those roses?

Thanks for your great post,

Virginia

I am pretty sure I do remember seeing some old family pictures that were taken in front of that massive rose bush. Thank you for the suggestion. I think I will start asking my older relatives about those photos. I hope someone has a color photo as I believe the one I remember seeing was black and white.

That "Garage Coverer" must have been a tough one. I know my grandparents were real "No Fuss" people, so it didn't receive anything other than water, and maybe some chicken poop. They owned and lived on their commercial chicken farm, after all :)

Oh Lisa, how beautiful! I so hope you find your Grandma's roses somewhere, someday. I have a similar regret - my husband's darling grandma had a great big red rose growing by her house. She died before I really started gardening, and so I didn't have the wit to take cuttings and now, sadly, it is lost to the family. It would have meant so much to all of them to have one of her roses. And I see this kind of thing happening around where we live - in the town where I went to grad school, there was lady who had magnificent roses. She was a wonderful lady, a great gardener, and she had a very sweet, beloved 24-year-old cat named Morris who she cherished. Many of her roses looked to me like OGRs, ramblers, etc. Oh how I wish I had taken cuttings of them! Because, just last week when I drove through town, I saw that the house had been razed and the garden bulldozed, no doubt making room for a McMansion. My one hope is that some of her "little blue stars" (her name for chionodoxas) survive in the cracks and appear come spring!

The issue with kids who "shudder" at family heirlooms is not whether or not they should want them; it whether or not THEIR kids will someday be disappointed and sad that their parent(s) did not bother to save any family heirlooms for them. I am not talking about just used furniture, but real heirlooms - high quality antique furniture, silver, good paintings, good crystal & china, quality oriental rugs, clocks, etc.

My DH's father's family saved everything (including the house & garden!). So, we have a house full of my DH's grand parents' and great grandparents' most prize possessions - and we prize them too. My parents saved nothing - got everything new each time they moved. I have some old photographs of the house my mother grew up in, and the pictures are full of such lovely things, all lost.

It is "in and with it" right now for kids to feel that anything old is "dead". I feel that this is just another fad. I remind our younger generations that we, and they, are actually just caretakers of these truly precious family heirlooms for later generations. Even the uninterested ones get it, and have asked us to save the good things they do not want right now, so they will still be in the family for future generations. (Luckily we have a very large basement!).

Jackie

Exactly!!!!!

Lisa, even a blurry b&w photo could provide some clues about habit and size; if the image is sharp enough, you could even get some useful clues about leaves, buds and/or flowers. Definitely worth pursuing... nothing ventured, nothing gained.

And don't forget to ask your relatives about the rose itself; even if they can't give you an ID, one of them may have a good story about how thorny it was when they accidentally tangled with it in the dark, or something they remember about fragrance or if it was a good cut flower...

Virginia

I'm currently saving 3 family heirloom roses. My Mom's Pinocchio, my Aunt's unknown red HT and an unknown pink rambler from a very dear friend's mother's garden. All of them were planted by wonderful ladies and gardeners in their brand new first homes sometime in the 50s. I know they don't seem that old but hopefully some day they will be because I saw to it. It took me several years to get healthy, growing plants of each but I kept trying until I succeeded because I know how important these can be to the family in the future.

There are a couple more I'm trying to get rooted right now because they may be doomed in the future and I don't want to lose them forever. These are both neighborhood roses that have been here since I was a toddler. I've tried a couple of times to get cuttings without success but I'll keep trying!

Jackie, the family I came from were farmers and small shopkeepers and laborers for generations. Some came to America in the 1600's and some in the 1700's. There was no money so there are not a lot of heirlooms around to be passed down. However, I do have my great-grandmother's great-grandmother's folding workstand for needlework, circa 1800.

None of my children sew, knit, or do any kind of needlework. Only one has a child and that child is a boy. None of my siblings are interested in it either. The workstand was in pretty rough condition when it came into my hands -- after all it is at least 200 years old -- so I found someone who does museum-quality restoration of antiques. He did a beautiful job. Now I am in the process of seeking an appropriate museum to donate it to, ideally in New England where my family originated. I plan to donate it in the name of my mother, whose great-great-great-grandmother was the original owner.

I have always loved this piece and want it to be safe.

As far as roses go, my great-grandmother on my father's side grew a Banshee on the family farm in northern Maine northeast of Bangor near Lee. Many of the relatives have it because my Dad rooted it and passed it around. I had a bit of it for a while. Suckered like mad, not one bloom ever opened, and in the end it got crown gall. I'm glad to have had it for a while, but there are better roses to grow, especially in my climate.

I agree with Jackie

had family that owned A large 1800's estate on acreage and the house was completely Victorian from Victrolas to lace up boots/dresses and wood stoves

the next generation stepped in the 70-80's and it was all hauled to a burn pile

As it was old and they didn't want anything and the future generations who were interested never got the option to pass on the heirlooms

whereas on the other side of the family everylittle thing From antiques to tickets from to catch a thief was kept so it shows how diffrent people can be

Rosefolly - that needlework workstand is a treasure. So glad that it will be in an appropriate museum. I have a friend whose family (on all sides that they know of) is/was Pennsylvania Dutch (which is really, of course, German). Their ancestors arrived mostly in the late 17th century. They have even found about 8 generations of graves!

Anyway, most of them were of course, farmers. I get the idea that the German culture involves saving/keeping things (that is how my DH and I ended up with so many antique family heirlooms - his father's family were German immigrants in the late 19th century). My friend and her mother have houses full of wonderful things - all from previous generations who lived on farms: many 100+ year old hand made quilts, dower chests hand painted with PA Dutch decorations, elaborate hand made Christmas and Easter decorations, elaborate hand painted frockters (don't know how to spell it - it is papers recording births, deaths, etc), etc. Some stuff has gone to museums, as they did not want them, but knew what they were. My two favorite of these were: dozens and dozens of hand made cookie cutters (they did keep out some for the younger generations) - in every shape you can imagine, and a small metal can about 3 feet tall (which looks just like a garbage can) decorated with candle soot in a fashion that the curator at the local museum said was typical of the 18th century - he was drooling over it. My friend's mother lives in a split level modern house. It has one large wall of brick in the living room. On it are hanging old pitch forks, a plow horse harness, tools, and all sorts of other interesting farm stuff. So, for families to have lovely family heirlooms, ancestors do not have to be wealthy, they just have to save things and care about passing them down.

Jackie

P.S. This family did loose one thing for the same reason you mentioned, garden nut. Only 3 generations back my friend's great grandparents had owned a real Tiffany lamp - they have photos of it. You got it - it was given away because it was "old fashioned". The family is still mourning it, and believe me, THAT will never happen again!

This is such a great thread. I want to pass down my plants to my children and hope most of them survive. I will at least make a list of my favorites so even they don't survive they can at least track them down if they want.

I was fortunate to find the rambler rose shown here which is Dorothy Perkins released into commerce in 1901. This photo is from 1923 and it was taken the year my Dad was born. This photo must have been taken in the fall as you can see the crabapple jelly cooling on the chair. Dad was born in May.

That is SO special! I need to find those old family photos. I'm so glad you have the photo AND the rose.

I should mention that my grandfather was a very organised amateur photographer with an excellent camera and he left a trunk full of negatives categorized by year. The photo was taken near Barryville, NY where my great grandfather on my Father's Mother's side had a dairy farm. Dorothy Perkins was growing in several locations around the farm, but by the time I found it was very weak and only just showing a bit of cane above the ground. I never noticed it for years; but it refused to die out completely.