Beautiful Begonia plant reminds local woman of her mom, other memories of family members

By Laura Schiermeier, Staff Writer
Posted 9/23/20

VIENNA — At 82 years of age, Shirley Branson has a lot of good memories.

She’s from a big family of 10 children, raised in the Vienna area of Maries County by their parents, Sam and …

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Beautiful Begonia plant reminds local woman of her mom, other memories of family members

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VIENNA — At 82 years of age, Shirley Branson has a lot of good memories.

She’s from a big family of 10 children, raised in the Vienna area of Maries County by their parents, Sam and Anna Crider. She says not a day goes by that she doesn’t think about something she wanted to ask them but didn’t, and she wishes she had.

Its like this for everybody. We don’t think of what we wanted to know about the past until those folks have gone and we’re the new keepers of the stories from before.

Lucy said there are so many things that remind her of the family members who are gone. Her brother Leo Crider was a great whistler. When he came to see her at her home in Vienna, he’d always whistle as he walked from his truck to her front porch. “It was always the same song,” she said. “I still here him do that.” About three weeks ago she heard whistling and got up. She thought it was him whistling. She opened the door and there was no one there.

This summer, she’s had a very beautiful reminder of her dear mother, Anna Crider. It’s an Angel Wing Begonia plant that has bloomed so prettily on her front porch. Her mother, Anna, who passed away on Christmas Eve in 2004 at age 98, had begonias at her home all of her life.

Lucy bought this begonia at the Visitation Spring Dinner in 2019. She put it in a little eight inch pot. Her mother always had a begonia at her home. It was her favorite flower. Her mom liked it because the blooms of dark and light pink with bright orange centers are so lovely. It’s a house plant that generally doesn’t get too big and can be put outside, which is what Lucy did with hers.

When winter came, she couldn’t bear to leave the plant outside. “I told myself, ‘I’m not gonna let that pretty thing freeze’ so I brought it inside.” She watered it and the begonia didn’t grow a lot nor did it bloom, but it lived.

This spring she set the begonia outside on her enclosed porch that has good sunlight from the north, south and east. It took off growing and blooming. Two more stalks came up on it. “I never saw anything like it,” she said. “I think of mom every time I see it. I wish she was here to see that.” She put two sticks in the plant to tie up the stalks and then she had to get another, taller stick it grew so much. A wind storm turned the plant over and broke a stalk. She used that as a start and gave it to her niece Pam Hale.

Lucy is five foot five inches tall and the Angel Wing Begonia is now taller than she is. “It’s a beautiful flower with a wad of blooms” that look pink and peach. She plans to find a good place for the plant over the winter because she doesn’t have room for the big plant in her home. The plan is to get several starts from it because it’s such a good plant. She wants see how long she can keep it living.

As one of 10 children, Lucy was the middle kid. “The older ones bossed me around and made me do things, and I had to take care of the smaller ones.” She has memories of the ones who are gone that keep her company now and then. Her mother never brought the begonia inside the house; maybe she never had time because she was so busy with her big family. Lucy is a little surprised about how well this Angel Wing Begonia has prospered in her care. “I don’t have a green touch with flowers.”

The plant and its lovely blooms make her happy. Another thing that makes her happy is thinking about her two new great-granddaughters—and there’s another one on the way.