Garden filled with precious moments

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Aug 8, 2002 by Capital-Journal

Edna Starr shows a Precious Moments figurine in a small garden around a rose arbor in her back yard.

A small section of Edna Starr's rock garden features container plants, a bird bath and Precious Moments figurines.

An old-fashioned well pump sets off a colorful container of moss rose in Starr's front yard.

Story and photographs

by John E. Chambers

Special to The Capital-Journal

NORTH TOPEKA --- Edna Starr has combined two hobbies in beautifying the exterior of her home on N. Topeka Boulevard, where she lives with her husband of 50 years.

Starr, with the help of her husband, Dick, and grandsons, formed a Precious Moments "rock garden" behind the house.

The Precious Moments mementos were inspired by her longtime hobby of collecting the figurines and several visits to the Precious Moments facility in Carthage, Mo.

Through the years, the couple has given each other Precious Moments gifts. Dick also has three deer statutes strategically placed under a shade garden.

Edna Starr's gardening began with raising vegetables. After helping to raise vegetable gardens while growing up on a farm at Soldier, she continued the practice in a spot rented with another couple in the south Topeka area.

The Starrs canned and froze their garden produce and basically raised all of their own food. Meat came from her farmer father.

"I went through several canners," Starr said.

In later years, after the couple no longer had children at home, her interest shifted from raising vegetables to growing flowers, starting with roses, which she still prizes most among her flowers.

Her favorite rose is "Mr. Lincoln," a red hybrid tea rose. She is a test gardener for Jackson & Perkins nursery, which does a large mail order business.

She prefers perennial plants, which continue to grow year after year.

One flower --- not a rose, but a daylily --- Starr "had to have" after she learned its name was "Flirty Edna."

Starr has never belonged to a garden club. She learned flower gardening as an offshoot of her vegetable gardening from a few gardening books and by working with flowers directly.

A lot of her flowers are grown in containers, and she has several small gardens in front of and behind the house. One small garden has a rose arbor over it.

Her "rock garden" consists of several square yards of pebble-size river rocks with containerized flowers, Precious Moments figurines and other garden accessories.

A large wood box in that garden stores her gardening materials. Work on the rock garden was started in May after school was out.

Her husband made one contribution to the gardens that surprised him. He discovered that his fishing boat had been turned over so rain water had collected inside it. He found that his wife had used it to hold the rainwater, which she prefers using to water her flowers.

"I told him he couldn't go fishing until I had used all the water," Edna Starr said.

The recent drought soon depleted all of the rainwater, however.

Her 27-year occupation of driving a Seaman Unified Sschool District 345 school bus kept her busy during the school year, and while the children were growing up, she had little time for raising flowers. She was busy working and sewing for the family.

She has loved driving a school bus, covering six routes a day, and plans to continue until she has completed 30 years. She now has on her bus routes some second-generation children of her earlier riders.

"That is always neat," she said. "I feel wonderful, and thank God for good health. My joy is working with kids."

She also works with children when she isn't working. She teaches a preschool Sunday school class now but has also taught primary, kindergarten and first-grade classes at the Bethel Baptist Church in North Topeka.

She also is involved in a women's Bible study group.

"I just love to teach," she said, and likes to share her faith and to mentor younger women. She is mentoring two younger women now.

"We were put here on earth to worship God and glorify him," she said, "and growing flowers is one aspect of that."

Starr rises early to spend some time in morning devotions before starting her bus routes around 9 a.m.

Dick Starr retired three years ago from Pepsi Cola Bottling Co., but now rides a small bus as a para for the Seaman district. He helps the driver monitor the children and gets those who need help aboard and situated.

The couple has lived in the Seaman district since 1971. Two of their three children were graduated from Seaman High School. A son is deceased. Daughter Debbie lives in Missouri, and daughter Lois lives in Meriden.

John E. Chambers, retired Topeka Capital-Journal staff writer, is a free-lance writer, photographer living in north Topeka. He may be reached at 234-6773 or by e-mail at jackpot3@swbell.net.

Garden: Quiet place brings peace to busy lives

See Garden, page 2