By Judy Heinzman

Christopher was a sleepy little village and barely a wide spot on a southern Illinois road before its train depot was built in 1879. It eventually became a trading post for farmers and then grew rapidly with the mining of coal. Over the years the population grew from about 300 residents in 1906 to now having just over 2000 call it home. My husband’s Grandfather, Walter Hawkins, was a church deacon, Sunday school teacher, high school teacher, and high school principal: and he knew them all.

Walter and his wife Madeline had been married for 75 years. Although they had truly little in the way of material possessions, they happily shared much of what they did have with them; family, friends, and neighbors. Grandpa Hawkins had grown in the yard of their modest home much of what they shared: vegetables, blackberries, and beautiful roses.

He would often be tending his gardens, especially his roses. A fall off a hay wagon when he was a young boy had left him with a pronounced and painful limp. Yet he walked through his gardens daily, pulling weeds, harvesting vegetables, and cutting roses.

Seldom was the altar of his Baptist church, or a neighbor’s living room after a funeral, devoid of overflowing vases of his roses. He often visited those in the hospital, bringing a kind word, a prayer, and a freshly-cut, colorful bouquet of flowers from his garden.

Grandpa taught me how to start a new rose bush from a cutting. He would begin carefully cutting a stem about 8-12” from the fading bloom on a beautiful pink rose bush. He then slit the bottom of the stem and dipped it in Root Tone. Next, he removed the faded bloom, punched a hole in a pot of garden soil with a pencil, and inserted the stem into the hole and kept it moist for several weeks. He shared many of those new cuttings with his family, friends, and neighbors.

For example, when my husband and I bought our first home in Virginia, grandpa lovingly delivered to us a beautiful pink rose bush that he had started as a cutting from the rose bush I loved in his garden. I planted it beside our front door so we would see it as we went in and out of our home and be regularly reminded of a much loved and humble man.

Our daughter was born while we lived in that house. Laying in my hospital bed, our baby in my arms, my husband Rick, walked into the room, not with a huge bouquet of flowers, but something more precious and thoughtful—a single pink rosebud from grandpa’s gift.

A special and enduring expression of love. My favorite hymn is “In the Garden” and it always reminds me of grandpa and grandma. I’m convinced that grandpa’s visits to his garden was his alone time to “walk and talk” with God. The “joy they shared as they tarried there” was literally Christopher community by Walter. I know he helped make his small mining community a better place for all to call home.

Judy Heinzman, an intern in the Master Gardener 2022 Master Gardener Class. For more information on becoming a master gardener, visit www. capcitymga.org or email capcitymga@gmail.com.