Mom
Memories and meadow flowers at Greensboro Farmers Curb Market By Ross Howell Jr • Photographs by Sam Froelich
M
argaret Rumley sits atop a tall, metal-frame chair with brown cushions, her feet resting on a wooden footstool. It’s Saturday morning at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market the day before Mother’s Day. Beside her is a metal cash box. Above it is a sign that reads, “The Rumley Cottage Farm / Flowers, Produce, Plants, Moss, Sticks and Twigs / By Mom (Margaret) and Shirley Broome / McLeansville, N.C., Guilford County.” Shirley Broome is Margaret’s daughter. She’s at work in the stand a step or two away, making final touches to rows of bright bouquets with the sign, “Mom’s Meadow Flowers $5.00 Bunch.” Shirley, of course, calls Margaret “Mom.” But so does everyone here. Well, except for the ones who call her “Ma.” “‘Meadow Flowers’? Oh, that comes from not long after I got married,” Mom says. “Next to our land was a meadow with wildflowers by a branch. Sometimes I’d gather some to sell because they always rooted real well in the damp ground. Well, one day I’d noticed these beautiful Indian paintbrush. But as I was digging them, the owner of the meadow, Mr. Wyrick, showed up. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was gathering flowers to sell and I’d be glad to pay him for them. “He said, ‘No, you won’t pay me, but I want you to promise me something.’ So I said I would. And he said, ‘I want you to promise you’ll buy something nice for yourself with the money.’ I told him I would, and I bought myself this beautiful
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June 2016
Chesterfield wool coat, and I wore it one day visiting him, so he’d see. It’s funny, his son Roy Wyrick became the manager of the farmers market, and ran it for many years. I bet Roy was 80 years old when he retired.” Mom smiles broadly, remembering. In fact, she always seems to be smiling, and her hair is as white as the deutzia blossoms in the bouquet she’s wrapping for a customer. When she first came to the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, Mom was 7 years old and Franklin Roosevelt was in the first year of his first term as president. One of eight children growing up in the Great Depression, Mom helped her parents sell flowers and vegetables. “My job was to look after my little sister in those days,” she says. “Keep her out of mischief. I got the nickname Mom way back then. It just kind of stuck.” These days Mom’s job is mostly to make change for customers. She can’t move around as nimbly or stand so long as she used to. She celebrated her 90th birthday in March, and has been through two hip replacements. “See, here’s a little trick,” she says. “Whenever I get ones, I fold five of them together to keep them. That way I can make change quicker.” Her customer, Cynthia Carrington, shifts an armload of peonies and two bouquets to the side and tucks the change from her purchase into her pocket. “Oh, I’ve been buying flowers from Mom ever since I got married,” Cynthia says. “Forty years. Year-round. You always get a surprise, because Mom and Shirley work with what’s in season. Over time, we became friends.” She pauses for a moment. “Mom’s helped me with all sorts of plants for my The Art & Soul of Greensboro