Our History
We are happy to share our farm and love of flowers with you. Learn more about us and our history
Homeplace
Shortly after the Civil War Roy’s great grandfather JWP Doan built The Homeplace for his bride Emmaline Adams Doan on land given by Emmaline’s father Steven Adams. A century and a half later The Homeplace still stands guard over the old farm buidings and rolling hills where grass-finished cattle still graze and wildflowers bloom. Lately, she’s hosted many a festive gathering. She received a facelift in 2009 but still maintains her rustic beauty.
Aunt Willie’s
Willie Doan Deakins was Roy’s delightful aunt. Her love of flowers and eye for beauty could be seen in her well designed and tended gardens. Several of her plants were likely starts from her mother’s or grandmother’s original plants (roses, phlox, peonies, lilac, mock orange, iris, and spirea) from the Homeplace. We chose to use these plants as starts for Aunt Willie’s Wildflowers.
A journal Aunt Willie kept while building the house in 1939-40 includes entries describing flower plantings which we try to duplicate when we can. A wildflower collection compiled by her brother Bruce (Roy’s dad) for a school project at Holston School in 1926 is still preserved in a binder complete with dried flowers, dates, and farm locations.
You may still find blood root in the “low places in the woods” when you walk the 6-generation-old farm today. Our hope is that through Aunt Willie’s Wildflowers, the love of all things wild that grow and blossom will pass beyond our family to any who would choose to share in all that God graciously bestows.
Barn Quilt Square
Our barn is on the Appalachian Quilt Trail. This quilt was discovered with several old family quilts in a trunk at Aunt Willie’s after her death at age 92 in 2001. When the quilts were divided among family, we chose this one for its bright friendly colors and the Bear Claw pattern. Aunt Willie and her husband, John C. Deakins, taught at Holston school from the late 1930s until the early 1970s. For that reason, when we learned we were going to get a quilt square for the barn, we were excited when Mrs. Almaroad’s Holston Middle School art class was willing to paint it. And teachers from Sullivan South High School donated money to help frame and hang the square for Roy’s retirement.
