Mrs. Adelaide Chapin: Sigman Byrd’s florist of choice
On October 1, 1947, Sigman Byrd claimed that the only florist he’d purchase hydrangeas from was Mrs. Adelaide Chapin. Hydrangeas weren’t Mrs. Chapin’s only specialty; she tenderly cultivated carmelias, azaleas, plumbago, and magnolia trees. It was her love for magnolia trees which spurred her interest in a floral career.
Mrs Chapin, anthophile and wife of Frederick St. John Chapin, was born in 1877 and started her floral business in 1942. She divided the location of her floral business between her home nursery (1421 W. 26th) and the Farmer’s Marke in downtown Houston. She had a keen eye for plants and trees and used their character as the basis for her selection. Mrs. Chapin explained, “you judge a tree’s character as you do a man’s, by his bearing, posture, and dress.”
According to Byrd, the residents of River Oaks bought her magnolia trees with the same urgency as “U.S. steel.” Additionally, as if her perspective on floral matters and seemingly lovely personality weren’t enough to warrant a mention in Byrd’s The Stroller, she was also a natural poet whose poems, “came to her like falling petals.”
In a lovely vale secluded, where
— Mrs. Adelaide Chapin
the great magnolias wave,
There was born within my soul
that day the courage of the
brave.
Mrs. Adelaide Chapin passed away in 1963 at the age of 86, 16 years after Byrd’s article was printed. While her home and nursery at 1421 W 26th no longer exists we can take solace in the fact that many of her seedlings are thriving throughout Houston today, particularly in River Oaks.