Schafer leaves a sunny legacy behind

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Cherie Schafer said she believes that somewhere up there, her late husband Donn is looking down and having a good laugh at her current sunflower situation — a predicament that he is at least partially responsible for.

In a way, Donn has posthumously sent Cherie flowers.

“I now have a 30-foot-by-50-foot field of 10-to-12-foot-tall sunflowers,” Cherie said, smiling. “I believe they are a heavenly gift from Donn.”

It’s a pretty big gift, too. Cherie may be underestimating the size of her sunflower field at her home on 202 Park Drive. Some of the plants appear to be 15 feet or taller, with stalks thicker than a human arm, and the plot they are growing in is sprawling beyond the original 30-by-50-foot garden boundaries.

“The birds scatter the seeds,” Cherie said. “The sunflower field will just get bigger.”

Cherie’s husband, Donn Schafer, passed away last November at the age of 74. A retired teacher and coach in Charles City, he was deeply involved and active in the community and left much behind.

An avid gardener, Donn was also well known in the community for his beautiful vegetable garden surrounded by flowers. Over the years, he converted Cherie to be the flower person while he tended to the vegetables.

“There was always a vegetable garden, and we gave the produce to everyone,” Cherie said. “When he passed away, I didn’t know what I was going to do with that garden. I couldn’t possibly take care of a garden that size.”

Cherie said that her children cleaned up the plot for her, tilled it and planted grass seed. It didn’t rain, however, and the seed didn’t grow.

What did grow was volunteer sunflowers — a lot of them. Literally, a full lot of sunflowers.

“And now I have a field,” Cherie laughed. “The volunteer sunflowers grew with a vengeance.”

Cherie said that years ago, “Our Iowa” magazine gave away giant sunflower seeds, and Donn took a few, planted them and nursed them along to adulthood. She and Donn enjoyed watching the birds feast on them, but they never harvested the seeds, they just let the plants reseed themselves for the next year.

Donn would cull the numbers each spring so there would be a dozen or so sunflowers, each about six feet tall. That didn’t happen this spring, so there are literally hundreds and hundreds of giant sunflowers.

Cherie said she’s happy for people to walk by and have a look at the flowers, close up. They truly are a sight to behold, but there is much discussion as to what is going to be done with them.

“My sons are very concerned about what we’re going to do in the fall,” Cherie said. “As I’ve done for the last nine months, we’ll just take it a day at a time.”

She said many people have suggested that it would be best to find a way to take the sunflowers out completely, but she’s not sure how exactly to do that.

Even if she knew how, Cherie isn’t sure she wants to remove them just yet. After all, they’re Donn’s sunflowers, and when she looks at them out her window and sees their bright colors and sees the birds enjoying them, she remembers how much Donn loved that garden.

She’s hesitant to remove Donn’s “heavenly gift” to her.

“We’ll see what happens,” Cherie said, with a smile. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”