When I decided to open a houseplant business in 1975, I knew nothing about either…

I’m a war baby. When I was born, my father was a soldier in Lorraine, France, a First Lieutenant in the Lorraine Infantry Division.

The building I rented on the corner of 1st South and 8th East in Salt Lake City had been standing empty for several years. Except for the patter of student feet on the floor of the apartment upstairs, the building was desolate.

Near the end of The Grass Menagerie’s third year, I received a certified letter from the Salt Lake Board of Education: The junior high school next to the shop was being demolished and rebuilt.

Permit in hand, I asked a dear friend to help me build my first greenhouse.

The years in my first greenhouse were the happiest years of my business life. Why? I had fallen in love, deeply and irreversibly in love.

Business was going but not growing. Wholesale cactus orders were frequent but small, and sometimes more effort than they were worth.

After negotiations were completed, the deeds and notes signed, and the greenhouse building permit waived, I was fired up and ready to go.

When construction of the foliage houses was complete, I went on my first buying trip to Homestead, Florida.

During the five-year interim before all of the Erickson property became mine, I had plenty of time to mull over what to do next.

I appreciate the concept of “good taste,” but I don’t have it. I know that while styles are constantly changing, fashion is not haphazard.

When we replaced Phranques Gallery with a parking lot, the 7-Eleven manager wasn’t mad at me anymore. Instead, when he saw me, he threw kisses!

In August of 1992, less than a year after we added two foliage houses and dismantled the original cactus house, the neighbor on the other side of the “little house” came to see me.

Early in 1994, Richard Gray, my banker, called me.

“Lorraine, I’m nominating you for the SBA’s State Small Business Person of the Year.”

here’s Secretary Bentsen and me at the front, then a phalanx of blue suits, then Harry Miller, bringing up the rearguard, still living the war.

After shaking President Clinton’s hand, having lunch with Governor Leavitt, and sharing my office (basically a potting shed) with the Secretary of the United States Treasury, Lloyd Bentsen, I confess I was feeling bumptious.