Page:Frederick V. Holman An Appriciation.djvu/5

Rh In this way he reached practically every grower in Western Oregon, and all this purely con amore.

It happened that I lived neighbor to Holman several years, and I frequently saw him at back-breaking work in his garden. Up with the sun Sunday mornings in early spring, he would be actively engaged till dark. Any one who began with a spade to raise one bed of roses can perhaps imagine the labor Mr. Holman employed to cultivate several hundred bushes whose blooms, in early June, dazzled the beholder. Only a few of us know that he learned his first lesson in rose culture at college. He majored in chemistry. Naturally he studied the chemistry of soil. Conforming to his bent of mind, he imparted to non-students his knowledge of chemical laws as far as they related to rose culture.

Portland is now known around the globe as the Rose City. The "soubriquet" was given to her by Mr. Holman. At least two generations will remember him as the father of the Rose City. Portland is not ungrateful. His work deserves to be memorialized. He loved the rose per se, and he also inspired thousands of his fellow citizens to cultivate the flower that brought him intense joy.



In everyone's heart there is implanted a love for his birthplace. It does not grow cold. It can never die. Frederick Holman first saw the light of day seventy-five years ago near the Pacific Ocean within what is now the state of Washington. Then it was part of Oregon territory. Here his infancy was rocked. Boyhood, youth, and manhood were lived in Portland. It was my good fortune to make Fred's acquaintance soon after I came to Portland, forty-nine years ago. Lasting friendship followed. Also I learned to know other native sons in whose veins flowed the blood of brave and righteous living pioneer parents, but I believe that my friend Holman surpassed every one of them in exalted love of birthplace, and in devotion to it. As I recall contacts with him, extending over a period of nearly half a century, his bigness is more clearly revealed to me. When he confined himself to calm conversation, or spoke with strong emotion against hypocrisy, sham, demoralizing in-