The wartime story of the ‘Peace’ rose and how it was transported from France under the very noses of the occupying Nazi forces to the USA
THE first ‘peace rose’ was bred by the Reverend Joseph H. Pemberton, who introduced it in 1918 and called it ‘Pax’. It was, and still is, a rose of outstanding beauty. The second ‘peace rose’ made its debut in Britain in 1948, and was called ‘Peace’. This, too, was a real beauty and is too well known to need description now.
No rose has been more widely planted in gardens great and small than has ‘Peace’. But it was the romance of its Pimpernel-like escape from the enemy, its wartime story and its timely appearance at a meeting of the United Nations that fascinated the public.
Its breeder was that famous French rosarian Francis Meilland. In 1936 he budded a few eyes from his seedling no 3-35-40, one of some 50 selected from a total of some 800 for growing on. It was not long after he had chosen this rose that Meilland realised he had produced his masterpiece. The first buds were sent abroad in June 1939 to Germany and Italy, where, during the war years and without his knowledge, they were marketed under the name of ‘Gloria Dei’ and ‘Gioia’. Meanwhile, Meilland named it in memory of his mother, Madame A. Meilland.
The Meilland’s nursery was in that part of France which, in the earlier years of the war, was unoccupied. They destroyed most of their stock and turned to food growing, but in November 1942 the US Consul at Lyons offered to take a small parcel to the US with him – and he was leaving in two hours! Hastily, Meilland collected budwood from his best new varieties, including, of course, ‘Madame A. Meilland’, to send to the Conard-Pyle Company of Pennsylvania. A few hours later German tanks lumbered into the unoccupied zone and all further contact with the New World was at an end until 1945.
Named at the fall of Berlin
The Conard-Pyle Company soon realised the value of what they had been sent and on 29 April 1945 the rose was given the name ‘Peace’ at a ceremony at the Pacific Rose Society’s Exhibition. The same day Berlin fell.
Using typical Yankee showmanship, when delegates of the United Nations met in San Francisco, Robert Pyle bribed the hotel so every one of the 300 statesmen was welcomed to his room by a vase of the new rose which symbolised all men’s hopes – ‘Peace’.