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Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden Tour - Newsletter April 2022
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The Easter Seagull and the Christmas/Easter Egg Tree
From left to right: Paul, Cindie, Martin and wee little Sandra in the front.
In my Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it (and note the gloves)!
Yes Virginia, there is an Easter Seagull (tee hee!)
My beloved grandparents Nels Greer Severin and Julia Roberta Harris on their wedding day in 1928.
Celebrating 50 years of marriage!
Too bad that egg wasn't saved - it should have been on the table!
The infamous Christmas/Easter Egg Tree is behind our smooch!

     Finding this sign while shopping with my sister recently took me on a ride down memory lane that I'd like to share with you.
    My family always started Easter at our home and ended up at my maternal grandparent's house. We'd wake up, hunt for eggs and our Easter baskets, eat breakfast, go to church, and then "Over the River and Through the Woods, to Grandmother's House We'd Go". Well as there's no river or woods from Garden Grove to Corona Del Mar, I suppose we should sing "Down Brookhurst St and left on PCH to Grandmother's House We Go!"
    Every year, my brothers would have new suits (worn with lots of grumbling) and my little sister and myself would have Easter frocks (often matching) worn with an Easter bonnet and gloves. We were stylin'!
    The year was 1967, and at ten years old, I'm the eldest in our family; my brothers are eight and six and last comes my sister who is three. My Grammy always made a scrumptious Easter dinner, while it was my Papa's job to color and hide the eggs. Now he did not hide them willy nilly all over the yard, he had a map in his mind of where each egg was lovingly placed. And it was never the same from year to year. So after the four of us could no longer find any eggs that year, we sat down on the grass, to count them, of course to see who found the most!
    To my Papa's horror, it appears that we were one short, so off we went in search of that last elusive Easter egg. Search we did until Grammy called us in for Easter dinner. And guess what we did after our tummy's were full? You know it, back out in the yard we went. Papa said that there were four eggs hidden in the little Christmas tree, and by our count, only three were found. So my youngest brother looked on the ground and in the bushes around the tree, my other brother took the middle part of the tree, and I being the tallest took the top portion. Now mind you, this tree was all of maybe four feet tall. It was decided that the Easter seagull (a feathered friend of Mr. E. Bunny) must have made off with it.
     Fast forward 11 years later... my fiancé is doing yard work, trimming the trees and bushes in my grandparent's yard in preparation for their 50th wedding anniversary celebration in April, and for our upcoming wedding in June. That little Christmas tree was now a towering giant at 20 + feet tall. My Grammy and I were in the kitchen, and watched my Fiancé through the kitchen window, when he pulled something out from all the dead pine needles in the tree branches and walked into the house. When he showed us what he was holding, both my Grammy and I busted out laughing! There was the lost Easter egg! There was still a slight tinge of color - a shade of very faded lavender, and it felt solid, as if that hard boiled egg had solidified/petrified over the years.
     Well my grandparents had a great story to share at their anniversary celebration and for our wedding, we tucked some flowers for extra decor into the branches of our Christmas/Easter egg tree.    
     Here's hoping that none of you will find a lost Easter egg in one of the 42 glorious gardens that will be open to view for this year's tour on April 30th and May 1st. I'd love it if you'd send a picture of a treasure that you find in one of our host's gardens. Tell me why it tickled your fancy and of course what garden you found it in. You can be in the picture, and who knows, you could be a part of an upcoming newsletter! 
     Happy Easter and see you in the garden in 20 days!

Please note that garden #9 Nohline L'Ecuyer had to withdraw from the tour this year.
These past gardens will be open, but are not officially on the tour - Ferree and Lebow
 
Contributed by Cindie Reilly
MLHMGT Board member and Newsletter Editor
Our mailing address is:                           Visit us on the web at:
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Huntington Beach, CA 92646

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Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden Tour · 8484 Shamrock Circle, Huntington Beach, CA, United States · Huntington Beach, CA 92646 · USA

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