The Peace Rose has had an eerie history of timeliness in connection with world events. These various events have been recorded separately in Success with Roses, each as it occurred, but it is in the total sum to date that the full drama becomes apparent.
Peace was christened during the Pasadena Spring Rose show in 1945, just as Berlin fell. Peace Rose blooms were placed in the rooms of the 49 head delegates to the first U. N. convention in San Francisco with messages of hope for world peace.
Later that same day came the news of victory in Europe. So the date set over a year before for the announcement that the Peace Rose was that year’s only All-America winner turned out to be V. J. Day.
First Honored Peace Rose
The name of the Peace Rose had been selected, and all these Rose events had been planned far in advance, with no sign of world peace in sight. So much coincidence was impossible! And then it happened again last fall.
As the result of scores by members of the American Rose Society through 5 years of growing Peace in their gardens all over the country, the Society had voted it their national gold medal, the first Rose to be honored. Dr. Allen decided to present the medal to Robert Pyle on Red Rose Rent Day last Sept. 8, a date decided on the year before.
And on Sept. 8, the peace treaty with Japan was finally signed. (Reprinted from Success with Roses, March 1952, published by the Conard Pyle Co., West Grove, Pennsylvania.)
The great history and welt-deserved popularity of the hybrid tea Peace remind many rosarians of the heart lift that the rose Better Times gave us back in depression days when E. G. Hill of Richmond, Indiana, introduced it.
Unlike Peace, the lovely blossoms of Better Times were much sought after in florist shops since it was essentially a greenhouse rose of good color and form.
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