Peg Stinchfield sits beside her "annual" spring flowers in front of her home in Phillips. (Laura Dunham photo) Special to the Irregular

PHILLIPS — When I got a call this week from Peg Stinchfield of Phillips that I must come over and see her spring flowers after a long winter, I decided to make that trip on Sunday.

We drove onto Sawyer Road and into Stinchfield's driveway, and I went inside her lovely home where she has lived since 1938.

"Did you see my flowers? Everyone comes in the spring from far and wide just to see my beautiful flowers after a long winter of snow," Stinchfield said.

So Stinchfield, 92, and I ventured out to the front of the house near the lovely stone wall garden and there and behold were those beautiful flowers.

With a twinkle in her eye she said, "I'm not sure where the seeds came from…" as I looked at all those plastic flowers arranged in the garden.

I don't think I will ever go to Wal-Mart or the Dollar Store again and look at all those flowers on a wall without thinking of Peg Stinchfield.

Stinchfield told me she graduated from Farmington High School in 1934 and then worked at New England Telephone in Farmington until 1938 when Russell Stinchfield "whooped (her) up in his arms" and asked her to elope, "Well, it was now or never," she thought to herself at the time.