True Dakotan photo/Duke Wenzel --- This photograph is exclusive to truedakotan.com and did not appear in the newspaper. Enjoy
South Dakota’s official flower, the pasque has heralded the annual arrival of springtime from the early days of the pioneers up to the present. The fuzzy purple plant is a joy to see each spring.
To the Wenzel family –True Dakotan editors Duke and Craig, and their brother and sister Joy Klein and Donald E.– it means even more: their mother, the late Mary Wenzel also viewed the arrival of the “crocuses” as a symbol that we all had survived another South Dakota winter. “Well, we made it through another one (winter)” she would say as spring arrived each year. The kids made sure that Mom Mary had a bouquet of the tiny flowers from the time they were old enough to climb a fence and hike up the hillside—continuing the tradition that Mary had started as a little girl.
Even though Mary died last winter – the first time she didn’t make it through another one in over 90 years– she would be happy to know her family and all others who are reading this did make it through another one.
The crocuses pictured here are now a bouquet that is resting on Mary’s grave in Prospect Hill Cemetery, fulfilling a promise we made to her before she died.
We know she was looking down, exclaiming as we set the bouquet down, “Oh, aren’t they beautiful!”
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