Mrs. Stewart Roses

This is an odd title for my column, and this article is a little different but last month April 27-28 was Holocaust Remembrance Day. It surprised me how many people forgot. I was watching a program on PBS this past weekend about an Army clerk typist who typed the transcripts for the trials a Nurnberg. Also how important it was to him to tell other of the Holocaust. I was taken back to when I was a child on the road to becoming a man. There was an elderly couple who lived down the road from where I was raised. Mrs. Stewart who was not very tall, and seem old to me but she was about my age now. She was always puttering about her rose garden. Each plant had a name, and we kids thought she was a little strange because she talked to her roses as she puttered often calling them by name. When I was in sixth grade, Mr. Stewart passed away while my dad gave him CPR. I was instructed to go and mow Mrs. Stewart’s lawn after that and to accept whatever she paid me graciously. I mowed a number of lawns for pocket money and at that time received $2.00 for front or back, $4.00 for both but most people gave me $5.00. When I had finished mowing, trimming and edging, Mrs. Stewart pulled out her little leather coin purse that twisted to close and carefully pulled out a dime and laid it in my hand. I hate to admit this but I thought it was a joke. But I did as I was told and accepted it and thought I would never mow her lawn again not for a dime. I told my dad that too. My dad told me to go and mow her lawn each week and so I did. There is more to this part then I can talk about here and I will write the rest of the story down sometime. I caught a lot of guff from friends for working so hard and for only a dime. The lawn mower we had did not run on gas, it ran on muscle and you had to push it. I also did whatever odd jobs for her and no matter what the job was or how long it took the pay was the same. Mrs. Stewart was teaching me how to prune her precious roses when a thorn grabbed her shirt sleeve and pulled it up, she quickly push it back down as if embarrassed but I saw the numbers tattooed on the inside of her arm just below the elbow. It was in the spring and at school we had learned about the Holocaust on Holocaust Remembrance Day and saw the photo of such numbers, and I knew she was a survivor. She paid me the dime that day, and I went home, but instead of squandering that dime on gum with a baseball card I put it in a jar. My son now knows why those baseball cards I gave him were so important to me. I asked my dad about the tattoo and he took the time to tell me a little of Mrs. Stewart’s story but not a lot more in general. I cried that night, not because she and endured such a place, but because I had been so insensitive to that dime. I had made fun of the dime with my friends as well, I never did again. I also made fun of her talking to the roses but I realized that night the names given to each plant were that of friends and family who were lost in the camps. That is why each one was so special to her, and the dime was now worth more than the $10 that one man gave for doing his large lawn. My dad had allowed me to find my understanding in my own journey and it was far more than he could have told me. I never spent another one of her dimes, I kept them and that was what made my first college tuition payment all except for one dime that was in my pocket when I graduated, when I was married, and will be when I die. I write this now so that each of you who have read my articles, learn to prune a rose from me, now you too have a connection to Mrs. Stewart and the numbers tattooed on her arm. Eddy County Extension Service, New Mexico State University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and educator. All programs are available to everyone regardless of race, color, religion, sex, age, handicap, or national origin. New Mexico State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Eddy County Government Cooperating.