History of Today for Tomorrow

The Tulip Tree

 Does family history always have to be stories of the distant past? Last week, as I was mowing our lawn, admiring our Tulip Tree and appreciating its provenance and meaning, it made me question this notion. Aren’t the stories of today histories for those in the future? If we don’t capture them today, then those who follow us may never know!

So, today, this blog is about the history of today written for those of tomorrow. The subject is this huge tulip tree and its story that goes back 25 years, nearly to this date.

Tove Moon

My husband worked at Barnes & Noble in Kalamazoo, MI with a lovely, caring woman named Tove Moon. Tove was a free-spirit always wearing billowy full length dresses with sandals and a beautiful smile. She was the epitome of a bookseller who could choose out exactly the right book for you after a quick conversation getting to know you. Tove was fond of Jim and not having any children of her own was ecstatic when she found out I was pregnant with twins. 

The black pot to the right of my husband
holds this year-old sapling.

In 1999, when our daughters were born, Jim was helping out doing odd jobs around her (and her mother’s) house. She had a tulip tree in her back yard and there was a sapling growing up next to it. As part of some yard clean up, Jim asked if he might have the sapling–tulip tree for twins, get it? Tove thought that was a delightful idea!

We knew that after I finished my graduate program we would be moving, so we didn’t plant it in our yard in Kalamazoo and just kept it in a pot. It lived like that for 3 years until we found our current home. It was an afterthought for those 3 years while we were managing twin babies, a dog, and finishing my PhD. The poor tulip tree lived through a lot, toddlers knocking it over repeatedly and  even a bird landing on it and breaking off its leading shoot. Instead of dying, it grew two main shoots!

Once we found our home in Pennsylvania, Jim planted it in the back yard where you see it today. It grew fast like most tulip trees do, but probably faster since it was so delighted to finally get the nutrients it needed. It was a beautiful green large-leafed tree, but for years that’s all that it was, until one May when our daughters were in middle school.

I guess I didn’t know what to look for in a blossom. One of my daughters had made it to a middle school state computer competition held at Dickinson College within a day or two of her birthday in the middle of May. It was a beautiful day, so I found an adirondack chair on campus waiting for my daughter to meet up with me. As I was sitting there I spotted a beautiful tulip tree…I recognized the leaves and on the ground scattered below it were these little orange and yellow petals. Wondering where they came from I peered up into the tree and saw, for the first time, a tulip tree blossom. These blossoms were scattered in and amongst the leaves, often hidden.

See? They are easy to miss!

We returned home that day and I immediately went out back to our tree and sure enough I saw a dozen or so blossoms sprinkled throughout the tree. I was stunned and amazed and wondered how many years had I missed this? (After looking up how many years before a tulip tree blossoms, chances are that I didn’t miss it many times.)

This year, they are easy to see and prolific!

Every May, right around our daughters’ birthday, I thoroughly enjoy the sight of these beautifully delicate tulip shaped blossoms. This year, as I look to the tulip tree blossoms I happily think of our daughters’ 25th birthday and Tove Moon, who passed away in 2011.

Apparently tulip trees can blossom for over 200 years and now since I’ve written this story down, (hopefully) people will learn the how and why this huge beautiful tree came to be in our yard long after both we and our daughters are gone.