By Dan Fishel
Elinor Carlson Tucker, a World War II veteran, can’t remember if she has ever known how old the “family” Christmas cactus could be, but it’s at least older than Social Security and has lived through at least 10 or 12 U.S. Presidencies.
She only knows that she was about eight when it was given to her mother, Belle Green Carlson, in the early 1930s and she thinks that was 1932.
Elinor’s sister, Elizabeth Alexander, had been the caretaker of the cactus at Higgins Lake for
many years. Following her death the cactus was passed on to Elizabeth’s son and daughter-in-law, Henry and Mary Alexander.
The Alexanders donated the cactus to Bloomers Flower Shop in Roscommon this past summer. Ironically, the cactus is now just across the street from where the Carlson house was located until 1959 when Roscommon State Bank purchased the property for the new bank.
Elinor said she can remember the family living there when the new high school was built in
1930. She said some of the men who worked on the school rented rooms from her parents. She said her father also kept a milk cow on the back part of the
property along Brooks Street.
Elinor said the cactus has a connection to the railroad. She said her father, Oscar Carlson, came to the Roscommon area from Bay City prior to 1910 to work as a railroad section foreman. He rented a room for a while at the present day ghost town of Pere Cheney before marrying Belle Green, who had come to Roscommon from the Big Rapids area. Belle’s brother was the late Jesse Green. He served in World War I and then as the Roscommon Train Depot operator and Roscommon’s postmaster before opening Green’s Tavern at the end of prohibition in 1934. As section foreman, Oscar Carlson walked and inspected the tracks between Pere Cheney and Geel’s, located halfway between St. Helen and Roscommon. Nearly every Sunday afternoon during the early 1930s Oscar and his family visited his fellow railroad worker, Bill Michler. Bill lived with his mother at the west end of Pioneer Road, near Beaver Creek about three miles northwest of the Village of Roscommon. Elinor said Mrs. Michler was hard to understand because she spoke a lot in German and mixed English.
One Sunday Mrs. Michler gave the cactus to Belle Carlson and it has been in the family ever since. Jesse Carlson, Elinor’s nephew, said he has a large piece of the same cactus growing at his house on South Fifth Street and his daughter also has some of the cactus growing at her home in Grand Rapids.
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