By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
PEMBERVILLE — There’s a sweet-smelling lavender plant for Hailey. Bright pink salvia for Leini. A brilliant purple Blazing Star for sassy three-year-old Sienna. There’s even a biblically named Jacob’s Ladder for little Oliver, who died at birth.
These flowers and 16 other perennials are planted in Norma Johnson’s raised flower bed in the backyard of her Otterbein Pemberville villa.
Beside each plant is a small stake that identifies the flower and the name of a great-grandchild.
While the flowers are associated with Johnson’s 20 great-grandchildren, the garden is planted to honor the memory of her husband, Duane, who died June 27, 2021, after battling a double–whammy of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
She asked each of the great-grandchildren (with their parents) to choose a type of perennial for the garden that would connect the generations to Duane, a man who was a servant of the Lord for 38 years. Duane was a pastor in the Evangelical United Brethren Church and later United Methodist Church when the EUB and Methodist churches merged in 1968.
His pastoral career came somewhat as a surprise, his wife of nearly 70 years recalled. “He had been a buyer for General Tire & Rubber in Toledo for four years. He came home from work one day and out of the blue said, ‘Pack my bag, I’m going to the EUB conference; I’ve quit my job and decided I want to be a pastor,’” following in his father’s footsteps.
Not long afterward, they moved with their three children: Debbie, 6; Gordon, 5; and Gary, 2, to his first parish in Paulding County’s Oakwood.
In Oakwood, Norma started gardening out of necessity more than as a hobby. Because Duane’s salary as a minister was significantly less than it was as a buyer, she and the kids learned to plant, pick and freeze produce such as melons, corn, tomatoes and onions to help make ends meet, she explained.
She didn’t grow any plants for nearly 20 years during the time Duane was serving in North Baltimore for 10 years and Oxford for more than eight years.
When they moved to Granville for Duane’s last 15 years leading a church, Norma rediscovered gardening after her mother gave her a set of plant encyclopedias as a gift. The books were filled with planting and care instructions for virtually every kind of house and garden plant possible in the United States. She became fascinated again with growing plants. The more she read, the more she experimented with gardening and soon filled their home with plants and flowers.
After Duane’s retirement, his health started to decline. According to Norma, they wanted to live in a continuing care retirement community closer to family.
“Otterbein Pemberville was halfway between our daughter Debbie (Swartz) in North Baltimore and our son Gordon and his wife Robyn in Bellevue,” she said. At Otterbein, Duane was able to get the services and healthcare he needed until he went into hospice.
When he died last year, his burial was in Newark in plots that he had purchased when they lived in Granville.
“Newark is too far away for me to put flowers on his grave very often,” the nearly 88-year-old admitted. “That is how I came up with the idea to create the garden here. I asked Otterbein staff to build the raised flower bed, and I asked each child to choose a flower for their great-grandfather.”
Swartz added the final touch to the garden — a two-sided placard featuring photos of her father and a May Sarton quote that refers to gardening as “an instrument of grace.”
For Norma, the perennial garden is her daily grace that provides a stunning reminder of her beloved Duane and a powerful bond with the rest of her family.
