Many
people contribute to the iris world in unique
and unexpected ways. (Witness all those
charming, bouncy Medianite covers
drawn by our own charming, bouncy Susan
Smith, for example.) But no one's contributions
to the iris world bring a broader smile
than the Squiggles that are the work (or
play) of Twyla Rogers Olmstead. This talented
artist and amazing woman did her amusing
cartoon drawings for The Medianite mostly
in 1961. She's done others for various
uses since, of course, but we'd lost
track of her and vice versa.
"The
drawing started from my first memory," Twyla
says. "I don't know a time when I began,
but the
Squiggles grew from World War II sketches
on the
backs of letters. I was told that they were watched for at mail-call. And after that they just hatched
out the end of my pen-point, getting bodies and
captions as necessary."
Tell
Muhlestein was the first one to encourage
the Squiggles, Twyla recalls. Bee Warburton
then asked Twyla
to contribute Squiggles to The Medianite, and some
classic iris cartoons were born. "When
Tell died,
it took the heart out of me a lot," Twyla
says. "I've
also lost Tell's wife's address, and I
wish I knew it. "
"The
last time I was at the Schreiners' Garden,
I gave the originals to Bob. He seemed to cherish them,
and I knew I had no one to pass them on
to." A mouse had eaten all Twyla's old Medianites in
storage
during one of the Olmsteads' many moves.
So the
cartoons became just a fond memory. "I
recently found
some old ones in a scrapbook of my mother's, though," Twyla
comments. And now they're being revitalized
after Jim Morris tracked down the Olmsteads'
address and wrote to ask permission to use them again.
So
Twyla has even drawn some new Squiggles, and
we look forward to making irisarians smile
with them
again. How Twyla finds the time to do them
is another wonder. `Busy' doesn't
begin to describe this lady's
life-she may be the prototype for the 'Superwoman'
concept.
"I
have reached 78 years, to my amazement.
Had I driven a car as I have this body, it would long ago have
been in the junk-yard," Twyla laughs. "But
perhaps as my doctor said, a sense of humor
has preserved
me. To tell you what's happened since 1961
would take a book and read like a soap
opera script."
A
first move became mandatory when a car racetrack replaced the former garden fields behind their house
with noise, debris, and undesirable neighbors. They bought an acreage with an ancient log house in 1964.
Twyla did timber clearing, road building,
and fencing
"the hard way" while husband
of 49 years, Earl,
"worked at the mill and provided
the funding."
"I
sweated out the Columbus Day hurricane
in the log
house," Twyla remembers. "It
plucked the roof like a chicken and destroyed
a lot, uprooting 40-yearold
trees." That's also where she fell
through the barn floor, and had to set her own leg to get out of the hole,
get in the car and drive to the hospital. "It messed
up the joint," she notes. "Plus
an attack on me
and my dogs by a stray pit-bull ended with
my having
osteomyelitis. (That dog was SERIOUS about killing me!) I spent about seven trips to surgery,
in between the sawing and hammering and cement
work."
After
the city annexed it and raised taxes, they
bought a house at Silver Lake in 1967, "and
started over.
We had `his and hers' houses for two years," Twyla
notes. "That move was where I finally
lost all the irises I'd managed to save that
far. In order to be out for the purchaser
in three days, I also gave away my
six peacocks, our small caterpillar, tractor,
etc." (She
was still holding a full-time job, finishing
an Associate
Arts degree in 1972, and forming a committee
which added 300 acres to Seaquest State Park.)
Their
current home since 1972, a 9-room Victorian in Castle Rock, built in 1905, has taken a lot
of renovating and redecoration. "We
have a lot and a half, with the house taking up much of it, so vegetables
have gradually given way to irises for room.
Of course, you know what the Mt. St. Helen's volcano
did to us here," she reminds. "If
the crow was
looking where he was flying it would be
34 miles
away." She continues on the town Planning Commission
and so many activities it would leave you
weak. "I firmly believe there is work
for me still to do," she states.
And
in spite of it all, Twyla has never lost
her interest
in irises. "I have quite a few listed
in a recent Medianite: AACHEN
ELF, BOO, BUMBLEBEE DEELITE,
FROSTED VELVET, PINK BUBBLES,
BATIK, JOHN, CHERRY, PETITE BALLET, and
others from Opal Brown....One I love called KENTUCKY BLUE GRASS, and LITTLE BIG
HORN... but
in looking at the lists that "GREEN-EYED
SHEBA" intrigues
me ... Now where
can I get that?
"My
doctor told me I would be pushing it to
go to the
Portland (AIS) Convention," Twyla
reports.
“They
had taken a cat-scan for another problem
and found an aortic aneurysm ready to blow. I had already
paid the fees, so I told him to get the show
on the road because I had a convention to go to, and I only
had two weeks to recover!
"If
you were at the Convention, you may have seen
me, unawares. I had embroidery "thread
painted" iris
on a sweatshirt and a dress, and many people asked
me about them. I didn't see any hybridizers from
the old days that I knew, and was feeling
lost, certain
that I'd long been forgotten. But when
Mr. Lowe
found me at one of the gardens and asked
me to draw him a Squiggle on a scrap of
paper, he was so happy
with it that it made my whole day. |
