The first man to vanish was a salesman from Chicago. A talkative sort, always tipping his hat too quickly and trying to charm every lady behind a counter. He’d stopped …

Evening came slow over Crimson’s Orchard. The trees were heavy with fruit, pale red with veins that shimmered almost violet in the dusk. The air was sweet, the kind that …

By the spring of 1914, Swanson’s Flower Shop had become the talk of Evansville. Every table at the Elm Street Tea Room boasted one of Vera’s bouquets, soft peach roses …

1921 The war had ended three years earlier but Evansville still wore black. The air carried a heaviness, the kind that lingers in empty rooms and half-read letters. Only one …

1937 Evansville had changed. Electricity hummed through its streets, the first cars lined Main Street, and the new department store towered where the elm trees once stood. Swanson’s Flower Shop …

1959 America was blooming again, in chrome and neon, not roses. Downtown Evansville was a grid of glass storefronts and clean sidewalks, and the Swanson name had outgrown the family …

Filed: April 14, 2025, Superior Township, MI Investigator: Dr. Elara H. Winslow, Horticultural Research Division, University of Michigan Voice Memo Entry One: Passing reference in an archived trade journal, “Swanson’s …