Every family has that one object that cannot be thrown away. It could be a chipped casserole dish, a recipe card with some of the butter rubbed off, or a group chat nobody dares to leave. Imagine that object being real, and blooming in your front yard every spring. That is essentially the story of the 'Chima Family Heirloom', a warm red poppy with ruffled edges.
According to Seed Savers Exchange , an Iowa-based heirloom nonprofit that distributed the seeds in 2017, the plant was brought to life by Valeria Dukelow of Pittsburgh and her mother Sarah Russ Chima. Valeria began cultivating the plant herself in the early 60s, and according to the same source, she saved its seeds, or allowed it to self-sow, at various addresses in Pittsburgh until she passed away in 2018. Additionally, her story prompts the question of what else we might lose when the knowledge and traditions of previous generations are no longer being preserved.
A seed packet with a passport
The family history of this particular heirloom is as heartwarming as any immigrant story. As the Seed Savers Exchange relays, Sarah was born in 1902 in Copăcel, Romania, and eventually emigrated to the United States as a teenager. She continued to write to her mother, Maria, who remained in Romania, and the latter sent her daughter the seeds of this poppy. Sarah subsequently grew the plant in Ellport, Pennsylvania, in the 1930s. Again, according to the Seed Savers Exchange, Valeria included a handwritten note with the 2012 donation, which presumably recounted this particular history.
