1888-03-29 – Herald Democrat – Elisabeth Dauth Interview ⧉

An interview of Elisabeth Dauth and her flower shop. ⧉

There are three florists in the city. Mrs. E. Cliffe, West Seventh street; Mrs. A. E. Johnson, East Fourth street, and Mr. Slater, on West Third street.; In a short conservation with Mrs. Cliffe, it was ascertained that she has not made any extensive preparation to supply a demand for Easter flowers for the reason, she says, that while Leadville ladies patronize the local hothouses when they want small bouquets or single plants, yet when they wish to secure a large number of blossoms, in order to save a small amount of money, they write to Denver and secure bids on the same. She has, however, many beautiful plants and blossoms, and expects to have quite a number of flowers by next Sunday, although at present the buds predominate over the flowers, as the latter are removed almost as soon as they open in order to meet the demand for cut flowers, the taste for which has steadily grown in the community, despite the high prices, so that while the florists have practically only been established about two or three years, both Mrs. Cliffe and Mrs. Johnson have made additions to their hot houses, and Mr. Slater proposes next month to erect a commodious structure of wood and glass, by the side of present building that covers quite an extent of ground.; The principal flowers that Mrs. Cliffe will offer on Easter will be the fragrant white lily that bears that name, pansies of almost endless variety, and carnation pinks. In the latter there are so many different colors it would be almost useless to attempt to describe them, since every year some new variety is added to the stock, but perhaps the most prominent this season is the yellow pink, for, as in other things, there is a style in flowers. Last season it was pink and yellow, and this year, although the white is prominent in table decoration and personal adornment, an edict of fashion has apparently decreed that the more lively colors shall be the favorite, and hand bouquets are made up of American beauties. La France, Memets and pink hybrids, while the floral emblems offered to the dead are no longer of one ghastly white. It will require some time to educate the people of the mining camps, according to Mrs. Cliffe's opinion. Up to this innovation, for Leadville residents still persist in adhering to the conventional white, although, to use her words, "there is no use of having everything about a funeral convey the idea of death." On the contrary, in view of the fact that there are but few who do not hold to the belief that death is merely a transitory condition in the passage from a physical to a spiritual life, it would seem that blossoms of various shades, emblematic of life, rather than dissolution, could be used with good taste. It is so in the eastern cities, at all events, where yellow and pink were marked additions to the trapping of funeral obsequies.; The beautiful narcissus, or, as they are known to many, jonquils, and eastern flowers, in Mrs. Cliffe's hot house, have exhausted themselves, as nearly 300 of them, with about 500 hyacinths were forced during the winter to meet the demand for such blossoms in the holiday season that closed 1887 and opened the present year. There are a few of the former flowers, however, that are pushing forward some buds which may expand by next Sunday. Heliotrope, geraniums and daisies may be depended upon to afford variegation of floral clusters, and a few more rare blossoms, as the plumbago, a delicate flower in tint and form, very closely resembling the lead-colored pflox; the oxalis is a bloom, trumpet shaded, though very small, and of an agreeable yellow color; the stephenotis, of almost the same shape, but waxen white, and the cyclamen, or Persian flower, of red hue, and resembling an inverted pink. The more familiar flowers, though, are the only positive blossoms that can be relied upon to furnish the decorations of any extensive character, and those range in prices about as follows: Roses, from 75 cents to $2 per dozen: depending, of course, upon the quality, as a Jaemonille or Marechal Neil always command a better figure than a plain ten rose; lilies, about $3 per dozen; carnations, from 40 to 60 cents per dozen; and pansies, from 25 to 35 cents per dozen. ⧉