VAN WERT - When peonies grew by the acre in Van Wert County, people came by the tens of thousands to see and smell them.
The lush, fragrant blooms became so popular that in the spring of 1932, Van Wert began hosting a peony festival that within five years was drawing close to 150,000 people to this town of 10,690 people about 95 miles southwest of Toledo.
Today, there are no commercial peony farms left here, but the festival is still held the first weekend in June. There are, after all, still an awful lot of peonies in yards and gardens across Van Wert County.
"It gives the public something free to come to, and everyone loves a parade," said Robert Exline, president of the festival committee. "They love bands and clowns. They love to see pretty floats. And, at one time, this was known as the peony capital of the world."
Local history accounts attribute Van Wert's love of peonies to Clara Anderson, a local woman who brought the first peonies to the city around
1900. Several local businessmen began growing the flowers as a hobby and later as a business - selling peonies across the country.
"The gardens were fabulous," said Jeanne Zeigler, who recalls going to the local peony farms to buy plants with her father when she was growing up in the late 1940s.
Mr. Exline is still trying to figure out how festival organizers of old managed to get the local peonies to bloom to perfection each year for the festival.
Early warm spring days followed by pounding rains had done the flowers in by this week. Floats in this weekend's Peony Festival parade will be decorated with silk peonies.
"Sometimes you don't have a white Christmas, and this year we're going to have a peony-less Peony Festival," said Helen Greene, whose front yard peonies looked nothing short of battered yesterday. "The last rain pretty much did them in."
Still, she and her husband, David, will invite friends over for a cook-out on Saturday to watch the 100-unit parade pass their home.
"The whole city turns out. Nobody stays home," Mrs. Greene said. "It's a typical small-town America day."
The weekend begins with a craft show at 4 p.m. tomorrow that continues all day Saturday at Van Wert High School.
There will be a fishing derby, car show, chicken barbecue, and home garden tours on Saturday, but the big event is the annual parade at 5 p.m. Saturday followed by a downtown street dance and, at 10 p.m., a laser light show at the high school football field.
Mr. Exline estimates 30,000 to 60,000 people will come to Van Wert for the parade. Sarah Giffin, a Van Wert High School senior, will reign as "queen jubilee" - a reference to the variety of peony that won awards for Van Wert peony grower Lee Bonnewitz at the American Peony Society's national exhibitions in 1916, 1917, and 1920.
The local history museum has an exhibit dedicated to the role peonies played in Van Wert County's history. The collection includes souvenir programs, old photographs of the Pasadena-style parades and queen contests, a gown worn by the 1960 queen, the red cape and crown worn by queens of festivals past, the scepter they carried, and the velvet pillow they knelt on to be crowned.
"Today we just have a tiara - no scepter, no robe. I don't think the teen-agers today would go along with that," Mr. Exline said.
Despite the peony festival's early history, this is only the 29th festival. The event ran for 10 years beginning in 1932, but was discontinued in 1942 because of World War II. The tradition was revived in 1955 only to be canceled in 1961 due to lagging interest. The Peony Festival saw its second re-birth in 1992 and has been held every year since.
Mr. Exline sees no reason why it won't continue. "It should," he said. "They always said this town could put on a parade."
Contact Jennifer Feehan at:
jfeehan@theblade.com
or 419-353-5972.
First Published June 3, 2004, 12:33 p.m.
