My Moss-Rose Tribute

 

Moss-Rose

         I planted this Moss-Rose as a salute to my Great grandparents on my dads’ side, George and Vina Hunnicutt.  I’ve been doing research on my family history, and last fall I was reading in a family newsletter about how my grandmother (Cora b. 1890) and her older brother (Raymond b. 1889) were born in a sod house on the Nebraska prairie.  My Great Aunt Blanch (Cora’s younger sister) wrote that “it was a very picturesque place in the summer time with the “Moss-rose” and other flowers blooming, that our mother planted on the roof”.  I never knew that my grandmother was born in a sod house or that they had ever lived in one.  My imagination quickly went to dreamy visions of ‘Little House on the Prairie’. 

Moss-Rose

     Upon further research, I learned the sad reasons for them living in a sod house.  In July 1887 GGF George lost his house and goods by fire, and then a few weeks after that his wife Maggie died in child birth. His multiple misfortunes were published in the local paper.  He still had two small children (Gertrude and Homer) from his first wife Florence, who also died in childbirth.  Life was hard and now it was harder.  Nine months later in March 1888, he married my Great Grandmother Vina and bought 40 acres from the federal government to start a new life.  This is the land where he built the sod house and where my grandmother would be born.    

Moss-Rose

    So when I look at this colorful Moss-Rose, I think of the hard life my Great Grandparents lived on the Nebraska prairie.  Living in a sod house wasn’t easy and misfortunes continued, but they carried on.   I like to think that the bright colors brought them some cheerfulness in a challenging time of their lives.  So I grow this Moss-Rose in their honor, and appreciate them and the life I live.