Sixty-five years ago yesterday (Wednesday), Virginia and Gordon Piper received a lemon tree as a wedding gift.
That tree, and their marriage, have been producing ever since.
The Pipers’ dwarf Ponderosa lemon tree has survived just about everything you could experience in 65 years, from multiple moves to a wayward lawn mower, producing fruit once or twice a year.
And these aren’t your everyday lemons — some wind up as big as softballs and family members have photos of one of the tree’s fruits nearly dwarfing a regular-sized Coke can.
“Gordon’s brother gave it to us planted in a coffee can, and it grew to the point where we’d plant it in our garden,” Virginia Piper said.
Every fall, Gordon would dig up the tree and bring it inside, planting it in a planter and placing it in a room that had the best sunshine coming through its windows during the winter months.
“Each time I transferred it when the cold weather came until it got to the point where we couldn’t lift that bucket any more,” Gordon Piper said. “We’d take it in the house and give it some plant food, and then it really took off.”
And the tree has been a fixture in the Piper household ever since. Through several moves around Dakota City, the family has always had the lemon tree in a location in their yard during the spring and summer before moving it indoors to keep it out of the always-unpredictable Nebraska winters.
And every year, the tree would produce fruit. Gordon Piper said they would usually get about a dozen lemons every six months, some growing to the size of softballs.
“One year, I think we had 17 lemons to pick,” he said. “The whole tree was just yellow with these orange-sized lemons.”
While the tree is only a few feet tall, its old, sturdy branches are able to hold the oversized fruit as it grows to maturity. Only a few young, green lemons were noted Monday as the couple looked forward to their 65th anniversary.
“It’s been quite a part of our lives,” Mrs. Piper said.
The Pipers’ three children — daughters Patty and Karen and son Gordon — said they had plenty of memories of the tree, which is older than they are.
“I was born about nine months after the tree,” oldest daughter Karen said.
“I remember the tree was always right there when we came into the old house,” Patty added. “We’d come in and take our shoes off under the lemon tree. It was just always a presence in our lives.”
While Gordon was the general caretaker of the tree over the years, the tree almost suffered a fatal blow one summer at the hands of his wife.
“It was really healthy out in the yard those first few years we were married until I hit it with the lawn mower,” Virginia said.
“She did it on purpose,” her husband said in a joking tone.
“I never mowed again after that,” she replied with a smile.
These days, the family helps the Pipers with the tree’s upkeep, from replanting the tree every so often to bringing it in and out as the seasons change. The tree continues to produce fruit every six months or so, and one of their grandchildren took the seeds from one of the lemons and planted them in little containers, producing more than a dozen seedlings.
It’s a family tree that continues to produce fruit, even all these years later.
“The tree has survived 65 years, and so did we,” Mrs. Piper said.
