Friend of Gardening--John and Joan Lawrence Create Their Own Lincoln Legacy

By Gwen Podeschi, Christian County Master Gardener

Thirteen species of oak trees greeted John and Joan Lawrence when they purchased their home from Dallas Achenach in 1975. "Dallas built on to the house," says John, indicating the place inside the home where the old and new meet. "He had bought it from Henry Faarup who built it in 1952. Mr. Faarup was a contractor and he and his wife did a lot of the work on the house themselves." A little research with the name online turns up a carpenter named Niels Henry Faarup from Denmark who immigrated in October, 1927, on the S.S. Majestic; was living in Pontiac in 1930; and retired to Florida, passing away there in 2000, at the age of 95. He can be found in the 1963 Taylorville City Directory, living on East Lincoln Trail. With an immigrant as its first resident, it is fitting that the house is faced with ballast stones from a Great Lakes steam ship. Trips taken deep in the hold of the ship have given the stones their unique polished surface.

John is an accountant by profession, but he has grown to love his home like a true son of the land. He and Joan grew up in northern Indiana and they maintain a vacation home there, but they will always call Taylorville home. "I'll be here even if they have to tie a rope around me to get me up the steps," he says of the home that sits on seven rolling acres of his thirty-four acre property. The remainder of the land is about evenly divided between woodland bordering on the Flat Branch and farm acreage. "I claim Lincoln road through here on his circuit-riding days," he says of the old road bed near the current route called Lincoln Trail.

That road bed was laid using steam engine cinders many years ago. A wooden bridge was located near his home in 1874, where early settlers had to ford the creek. It was replaced by a steel span around 1900, but was removed in the 1930's when the road moved to its present location. The road bed is still very evident just to the left of the driveway and it isn't hard to imagine the lawyers and officials of the old Eighth Circuit riding along the route. Osage orange trees, oaks, and elms provide dappled shade in the late evening sun, with the beautiful—and pesky—red poison ivy vines twining up the trunks.

His neighbor just across Lincoln Trail was Jim Cooper, Sr., editor of the Breeze-Courier, had some advice for the new home-owner after watching him attempt to clear the property of autumn leaves early on. "Jim probably had an inventory of every tree on his property—Wilda certainly claimed he did," says John. "He told me, 'Just let them blow and pick them up out of the fence rows early in the spring, John.' Now, of course, with mulching mower blades, it's a lot easier to keep ahead of the leaves, but I take Jim's advice."

The differences in the oaks on the property challenged John to identify his trees. "Peggy Wright's dad had been a lumberman from Michigan and gave me a book listing all the different varieties of trees. I used the book, but still didn't identify every tree. It's just amazing how many oak trees there are." He has added trees to his property through the years, going out of his way to make sure he gets something different than those already growing there. His inventory of oaks is up to 23, but he didn't stop there.

"I read that the original timber would have had hickory trees and I searched the property over for a hickory, but didn't find a single one." So he ordered four shagbark hickory trees and planted them in a row in front of four oaks on the front lawn of the house. These hickories are mature enough to exhibit the bark characteristic of their name, adding winter interest to the landscape and bringing back a touch of the native trees that once shaded the streambeds of central Illinois.

Four smaller trees in front of them sport bright yellow foliage with a leaf shape that resembles the hickories. They fooled John, who found the parent tree growing by the creek with several small trees around it. He transplanted them, but soon realized he had NOT planted hickories. The trees have turned out to be paw-paw trees, a native tree with a heritage all its own. Once popular as a food source with Native Americans and early settlers, these trees will eventually produce an oval fruit, similar in size to a grapefruit and in taste to a banana. "I realized pretty soon after I planted these trees that they weren't hickories and I asked Bill Southard to help me identify them. He said that wasn't hard—that they were paw-paw trees. Then he pointed out the big tree at the intersection of East Park Street and Paw Paw that you can see from Park Street as you go under the viaduct." John's young specimens are sporting their fall hues of yellow and gold, but it will probably be a few years before the fruit appears.

Going in search of trees with great fall color, John has planted "helicopters" from hybrid Red Maples (Acer Rubrum) he's found, as well as seeds from a spectacular yellow-leafed maple he found on Cherokee Street near Oak Hill Cemetery. "I've brought back coffee cans full of acorns from Brown County and French Lick, Indiana." John's methods are low-tech, but successful. He was recently kind enough to adopt a red oak grown from an acorn found at the Lincoln Home in Springfield (don't go picking up acorns there, they come from the American Arbor Day organization) and it is taking root on the front corner of his property.

And then there's THE tree on his property, the one with the porch swing perfect for daydreaming, hanging from a branch that is as big as a tree itself. The white oak standing nearly one hundred feet from his driveway may not be (or maybe it is) the state champion, but it is certainly one of the most magnificent oaks you will ever see. Appreciating this tree to the fullest requires that you view it from a distance, and close up. Sulfur shelf mushrooms, also called "Chicken of the Woods," sprout near the base of the tree, not so much a serious concern for the tree health as an indication of the ecology typical of trees of this size and age. Looking up into the branches give a true picture of what is meant by the "canopy" of the tree. Autumn winds stir the lobed leaves of the tree, recalling the gentler temperatures of Indian summers, past and present. Seen in any season, this tree is worth knowing.

Trees inspire poetry, teach us about life and nature, and give us shelter and shade. Follow in John's footsteps—hug a tree or plant one. It will reward you all the days of your life.