(30 May 1956)  Page(s) 4.  
 
Widow Creates New Rose as Tribute to Husband

WOBURN, Mass. Mrs. Gladys Fisher, a grandmother and widow of a horticulturist, is being honored this year for creating a true lavender rose while trying to fulfill her husbands dream of a blue rose.

Mrs. Fisher's rose, which she has registered with the American "Sterling Silver", made its debut at the New England Spring Flower Show of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, a national organization and the largest of its kind.

She freely admits that when her husband, Gordon, died in 1953* [sic] she didn't know a pistil (the part of a flower linked with the miniature seed) from a stamen (the organ of a flower which produces a fertilizing cell).

Because her husband, like many other flower growers, dreamed of a blue rose, she too took up the quest—hoping she might create a memorial to her husband. This involved the study of hybridization which she undertook with such earnestness that she became known as one of the world's most distinguished woman hybridizers.

It is 10 years since Mrs. Fisher went to her greenhouse one morning to see what seedlings had bloomed In the night. She found the first blue-gray lavender rose.

"It was a weak little thing," she says. "But I took out a patent and carried it along, hoping it would grow stronger. Names are registered with the American Rose Society, and I asked for the name Moonbeam, but was told that it had been used in England. Then I selected another name, Morning Mist. I never introduced this rose because the seedling wouldn't produce a strong plant. But Morning Mist is one of the male ancestors of Sterling Silver.

"Peace is Sterling Silver's female parent. Peace has had countless rose children. Aside from beauty. a successful rose must be a good grower. It must be disease resistant and capable of producing a fine crop of both flowers and foliage. It must be upright sturdy and long lasting. I have had thousands of hopeful seedlings, but few survivors.

"I have tested it since 1952 to be sure that its characteristics—keeping quality, color, scent and fertility—have settled to a changeless pattern."

*According to the obituary for Mrs. Fisher in The Boston Globe (Boston, MA), October 20, 1993, her husband died in 1943.