Secret daffodils of Marshall Twp.

In 2004, while working for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I wrote a story about an amazing daffodil display along Warrendale-Bayne Road in Marshall Twp. The flowers were planted to create the words 100 feet across saying “Welcome Spring.” Next to that is a cross 35 feet wide and 55 long, all made of daffodils.

Here’s part of the story from the PG- “The flowers were the work of the late John Frey, who was born on a farm that at one time covered most of the surrounding area. Over the years, parcels were sold off, and crop land was replaced by homes. But Frey stayed.

In his farmhouse, time stood still, with simple wooden floors and a well pump at the sink. "It's a reminder of what things were," said neighbor David Pampena, who moved in nearly a decade ago. "I looked at him as somewhat of an icon of the area."

Pampena remembers Frey the way most others do: as a quiet, sincere and hardworking man.

He started the cross decades ago, first growing the daffodils in nursery beds for a few years, until they reached their peak.

Each spring he would mow down the field on an old tractor in anticipation of the spring show his daffodils put on. When they bloomed, it was a landmark used by many in the area when giving directions.”

After Frey passed away, the farm was sold to a developer and it was thought the daffodil display was doomed.
A few months after the first story ran about the daffodils, 17 year-old Boy Scout Jeremy Corll announced his service project for Eagle would be to dig up the daffodils and transplant them to the Mount Pleasant United Presbyterian Church, on Pleasant Hill Road, which is just a couple miles past the old farm.

At the end of the first PG story, I had interviewed John Frey’s sister, Wilma Manners.

“As the sun sinks low in the evening, the cross is bathed in warm light. The rolling hills of the farm that once echoed with the rumble of Frey's tractor are quiet.

With tears in her eyes, Wilma Manners says what she thinks about when she looks at the daffodils.

‘Mostly just about him, in the last few years. I think of him sitting on the porch.’”

To see the daffodils take I-79 north to the Warrendale exit and turn left on Warrendale-Bayne Rd. The daffodils are about a half on the right. It’s hard to see those originals now, as they are blocked by scrub trees which have sprouted up, but they are still there. It’s amazing how many survived after Jeremy dug and moved them.

Here’s the original Post-Gazette stories I wrote about the daffodils- Are the Marshall Twp. Daffodils Doomed. Saving the Marshall Twp. Daffodils.