The tomatoes got off to a bad start in Dad's garden this year...the poor things.
It didn't seem as though they would pull through -- let alone produce anything worth harvesting.
But Dad, he wouldn't give up on any of them, and all through June and July these scraggly excuses for tomato plants were
given room to grow and try their best anyway. Gardening was more than a hobby for dad - it was his way of living and
dealing with other people.
Of course, this summer, his body wouldn't let him do the work he loved to do in the garden. So, combining the notable features
of Jim Crockett and Cecil B. DeMille, there he sat in a director's chair at the edge of the garden, issuing commands to Mother,
who scurried around planting, weeding, and tending all the little plants.
I don't know how he first became interested in gardening. He was born in Indianapolis,
Indiana, July 8, 1913, but if there were any gardens there, they couldn't have had much
influence on him as his family moved to Massachusetts two years later. They settled in
Andover. His father, William C. Bliss (senior then) worked in the business office of the B&M Railroad.
Dad grew up in Andover, went through the Andover schools and sang in the church choir. But then his father died while
he was in Junior High and Dad's mother, Florence, had to support the family while raising a teenage son. Of course,
Dad was working too, after school, to bring in more money. Together they prevailed and this early experience was the
seedling that taught him the value, and the necessity, of hard work, which grew into the strength of purpose that
characterized so much of his life. There were good things too. Part of his father's legacy was the free use of the
railroad for his widow and her dependants which made it possible for Florence and Bill, Jr., to visit old friends and
relatives back in Indianapolis and it became a yearly tradition.
Part of this trip would include a stop by Chicago to see the Watts side of the family. These family reunions would bring
together distant relations from all over including one family from Topeka, Kansas, who counted among their members a sweet
little thing named Vivian.
Somewhere along these visits, another seed began growing, and by the time Vivian was graduating from high school, there was an
active and tender correspondence going on courtesy of the U.S. Mail. In the interim, Vivian's family had moved from Topeka to
Chicago. 1933 in Chicago was exciting, the world's fair was coming and Vivian's high school glee club had won the competition
to perform there. Of course, William had to attend. As I understand it, that World's Fair was an enchanting and romantic event
for the two youngsters and the growing seed now blossomed into a deep and abiding love that was to continue for the next
half-century. You can imagine how it was to be young and in love at the magical world's fair with its bright sparkling
predictions for the future, and Vivian can still remember the great searchlights that were fanned across the sky in brilliant
rainbows, perhaps, just for the benefit of young sweethearts walking hand in hand.
But still, he lived in Andover and she lived in Chicago, so the Post Office sold many more stamps as the two corresponded back
and forth. The World's Fair repeated in '34 and reinforced the magic of the first one.
The lovers were getting more serious, but there was the matter of making a living.
This was probably the toughest time you could imagine for a young person to begin a career. Bill graduated from Bryant &
Stratton Business School in the depths of the depression. But the school was able to find him a position as a secretary/bookkeeper
for Whitlock Cordage Company, a major rope manufacturer. Meanwhile, Vivian entered Northwestern University in Chicago.
The Post Office flourished.
It was while she was in college that Bill finally asked for her hand in marriage. But, they also realized that although they
knew each other so well by correspondence, they had little experience with seeing each other day to day. So, after graduation,
Vivian came to Boston to live at the YWCA and to see if this fellow really measured up. Apparently he did, for on June 19, 1939,
they were married.
They took a small apartment in Boston, and things were looking good. The business career was showing first fruit; Bill was now
a salesman for Whitlock and was becoming well known to the people on the docks, the fishermen and shippers who were the major
purchasers of rope.
Two years later the marriage was blessed with their first child, Barbara. Apparently, they were pleased with the results,
for a year later, Vivian was expecting again and the Boston apartment was obviously going to be too small. Thus, the
Blisses moved to a house in Reading where I was born.
The little family grew and the businessman grew as well. He soon became Sales Manager for New England.
Here is where Bill first became involved in gardening in the traditional sense. With a rake in one hand and a book in the other,
he learned by doing, made his first plantings and nurtured his first crop. At the same time, he learned a different sort of
gardening from a wise gardener of people. Dr. Langcaster, the Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, had asked Bill to
help him "just organize" a Boy Scout Troop. They wanted one, but they needed somebody who was good at organizing to set it up.
From this little seed of a suggestion, the troop grew and Bill became the scoutmaster; growing with the organization over the
next seven years to ultimately become the President of the Quannapowitt Council. I think from that example, he learned the talent
of gardening people because it is obvious from talking to all his friends and business associates that the gardening of the
people around him, rake in one hand and book in the other, was the way he conducted his life and projects.
Seeds of ideas and projects come from many sources. Soon after coming to Reading, Bill began meeting interesting and
creative people from whom he could learn. He met the Russells through the Kindergarten their children shared and this
planted the seeds of long friendship and exchange of ideas. Through the Pearl Street School PTA he met the Stevensons
and so many others. These were new gardens where ideas and talents could flourish. Many of you will remember the shows
that the Pearl Street School would put on, the minstrel show, the Old New York show, TV Hits and Misses, and The Corn is
Greek. Like the others, he was happily involved up to his elbows doing whatever was needed to make the show work...he
wrote, he acted, he sang, he pounded nails, and the shows were always a huge success.
Jim Russell was recalling some of the better lines he wrote for "The Corn is Greek." which depicted a PTA in ancient Greece.
The committee was discussing a building for the children some "new ruins" and I recall a proud parent proclaiming new child's
progress in chiseling stone tablets, "…in fact, the teacher says he's the best little chisler in the class!"
I can dwell on his growth in business, but I'll try to keep it short. He went on to Real Estate from Whitlock, as a result of
friendships in the PTA, and became a member of the million dollar club. But this wasn't satisfying. There were many other
ventures with the help of many good friends and business associates, he learned more and more that his real love was in the
marketplace of ideas...communication and marketing. Marketing Communication, Inc., became his personal garden, a place where
he could take what he had learned from friends and experience and develop what he felt was the proper approach to marketing.
I think it was here that he was happiest. It was his creation and he loved what he did. In fact, it was quite obvious that he
wasn't in it for the money. He wasn't indifferent to it, but it wasn't his highest priority, either. He was more interested
in doing the job the right way, putting the client's welfare ahead of his own.
He often performed two-thousand dollar jobs for five hundred dollars...to deliver lesser quality would have not met his standards,
even if the customer didn't realize it. He would even talk himself out of easy money. Clients would plan to spend enormous amounts
on advertising, but Bill would know that it would be wasted money, whereas a far more effective method would accomplish the
desired goal at a fraction of the cost.
This, of course, was a source of some frustration for those of us who worked for him, because we were a little more
interested in the money than he was. Many battles were fought over what we should bill the client, but he usually won out.
More important was the way he developed his people. It occurres to me that he performed a reverse form of nepotism; he
would hire people, and then turn them into family. Sandy Pruneau, who came to the company as a secretary and is now
running it, thinks of him as a father...she's told me so repeatedly.
And it's like this with almost anyone he approved of, they became more than friends or associates and are members of an
ever-enlarging and growing family...a growing garden if you will.
Dad is famous for taking foundling plants under his wing and bringing them to bloom. He would go to the Nursery yard and, for
a song, he would get the withering little plants that they were about to cast out...then he would tend them and nurture them
and before long, a good portion of them would recover and grow strong. There is, even now, a former Ficus Benjamina in his
cellar that was moved indoors and out one time too many...all the leaves have fallen off and to all appearances,
it is an ex-plant. But this poor little stump is still sitting where it can grow if it can, and although, it hasn't
shown any green so far, I wouldn't dare give up on it for at least a year...because he wouldn't have.
And that is what I mean about him gardening people. He didn't command them, or control them like puppets. He would find the
seedlings that showed promise, despite their current appearance, and nurture them, give them room to grow in their own way
without confining them, but encourage them subtly with suggestion, planting seeds of ideas, and fertilizing with positive
and encouraging thoughts.
I don't mean to build him up as a saint, for he was as human as any of us and dearer for it. He could be as disorganized as
an explosion in a spaghetti factory. I think his most frequent questions in life were prefaced with the words, "where is my?"
If you ask Fred Stevenson about Dad's garden, he will tell you what a disorganized mess it is with too many varieties planted
almost at random, and Fred speaks with authority as his garden could proudly grace the cover of Home & Garden magazine. But that
is so typical. Dad was more concerned with trying this and trying that and seeing what would develop, that he would lose track
of the details of remembering where his glasses were, or that important report that the office spent all week producing, or where
did he plant those potatoes? And is this a weed, or something I planted? This was extremely frustrating for my mother who is
very neat and organized and, often Sandy would send him home with notes pined to his jacket to remind him of important things
for tomorrow.
And, skillful as he was with growing things, how just-the-opposite he was with mechanical things. It is a tribute to his
determination that, although he was never able to win his war with machines, he never once gave up. Dad has owned maybe a
dozen tape recorders of various kinds in his life. As tools, he appreciated their creative value and how they could help
him in his work. Yet, three months couldn't go by without my getting a call from him asking how to make the blankety-blank
machine do what he wanted.
And he expected capabilities from machines they seldom had. ...such as understanding spoken English. He may have taken his
mechanical training from Rube Goldberg. One of my favorite photographs of Dad was taken at my daughter's first birthday
party. Dad, of course, would not let such an occasion pass without recording it on film. He needed light, he needed cameras,
he needed action. In the photo, we see a large camera, light bars, brackets to hold them together, wires of many sorts to
connect them together, all wrapped around each other in a tribute to abstraction. And, somewhere deep within this juggernaut,
this calliope of parts, you can see, there he is, Grandpa, taking pictures.
His nurturing manner would not admit defeat with any machine, either. I can't recall a single automobile he bought that was not
a lemon and although he would curse and kick at them in private, he would faithfully stick by them, keeping them going in hope
that all would work out.
If sufficiently frustrated, he was capable of a nuclear explosion of temper and a vocabulary that demonstrated that down on the
docks of Boston he learned more than how to sell rope. But if the truth be known, his venting of anger was so extreme that it
was actually comical, and mother was hard pressed not to burst out in laughter when dad blew his stack.
He loved the sun and, perhaps, thought of himself as a flower, for he would soak up as much sun as he could wearing the least
possible amount of clothing while working in the garden. Mother had to buy him a teeny-weeny little bikini so that he wouldn't
be working in his underwear.
He was very much an individual who looked for the fun in life and appreciated the happiness in others' lives as well.
If you had a good vacation, he wanted to hear all about it, and genuinely shared your pleasure in hearing it. He encouraged
your ideas and celebrated your success. He wanted to know how you felt about it. And even in great pain he was cracking jokes.
Well, that struggling little company is grown now, its children are now running it, and the future looks good.
His children now have children and the grandchildren are coming along just fine. And, y'know something? Those poor little
tomato plants in the garden that looked so bad this spring...well, they pulled through after all. Just yesterday, we picked
five juicy ripe delicious tomatoes for supper. The corn is mature and delicious, and from the looks of things, the garden
will reap a bountiful harvest right through the end of the season. And, looking at the larger garden, so many of the seeds
he's planted have grown to wonderful maturity and are carrying on of their own. It's a beautiful garden. I'm sure he's pleased.
