I find comfort in seeing the little old gray house on Kessler Boulevard. It has always been there and it has always looked like it does now and it has always had flowers in the yard. It's a Victorian house with gingerbread and plenty of original details that could have been highlighted by a variety of colors, but I remember them as always being a medium gray, in deference to the profusion of flowers blooming in the yard. In this household, the plants and flowers take precedence.

For the past 70 years the house has belonged to Karl and Bessie Theilig, and now their daughter, Helen. Karl bought it in 1935 from Arley Dierks. Karl married Bessie Hills in 1936 and brought her home to it.

Karl Theilig was born in Flensburg, Germany, and was orphaned at the age of 11 when the flu epidemic of 1918 took his parents. He saved all his money for a steamship ticket to America. His older brother was already in Texas when Karl arrived in New York on June 11, 1927 - the day Charles Lindbergh returned from his flight to France. Karl had been sponsored by a Lutheran congregation here, and stayed with the Fred Quebe family on Bluff Road.

Karl learned English at Arsenal Technical High School and from silent movies. Like many German immigrants before him, he worked in the greenhouses and nurseries along Bluff Road on the south side of Indianapolis. Later he was hired to work at Hillsdale Nursery near Castleton. His sister, Anna Theilig, was a maid in the Donald Stackhouse home in the 6100 block of College Avenue. Karl decided to go in to business for himself. He bought a house on Kessler that was east of Broad Ripple and started planting nursery stock in the yard.

While doing yard work for people, Karl went to school and learned about blue prints. He was then able to plan gardens and draw them, so he moved into the landscaping business. One of his customers was Harold Handley, Governor of Indiana from 1956 to 1960. During Mr. Handley's residence in the Governor's Mansion at 4343 N. Meridian, Karl Theilig planted flowers there. They remained friends for years and Mr. Handley would come by the Theilig house and the men would sit out back and drink beer.

The Theiligs' daughter, Helen Landsem, grew up in the gray house, and remembers when there was a bridle path along the north side of Kessler where the sidewalk is now. There was a horse barn on the property where Northminster Presbyterian Church is. She was married at Northminster in 1962, and then moved to North Dakota with her new husband to farm wheat, barley, oats, flax, and beef cattle. Her sons still help on the farm. For twenty years Helen came back for a month during the summer to help her parents in their nursery business. After her husband died in 1990, she came back to live with them.

Karl died in December, 2003, at the age of 96. The summer before, he was still out in his flower-filled yard digging, planting, weeding, pruning, and cutting bouquets that he sold from the back patio. Helen helped him, and now carries on with his work and still sells bouquets off the patio. She also sells at the Broad Ripple Farmers' Market during the summer. She finds Saturday mornings at the market relaxing after a week of hard work in the heat.

Helen's bouquets are made of common flowers found in many yards including phlox, ageratum, salvia, zinnias, even hosta flowers. I have many of these flowers in my yard, but Helen's arrangements far surpass anything I could do with the same flowers. I never realized how beautiful a composition of these ordinary flowers could be.

The history of the Theilig house is a bit of a mystery. Helen relates a story her mother told her long ago: Shortly after Karl and Bessie married in 1936, an elderly woman came by the house and said she had lived there as a young bride of 17. She said the house was originally one room-what is now the kitchen-and that her father, a Dawson, built the rest of the house onto that one room. The Washington Township, Marion County, Interim Report published by Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana in 2000 lists the house as "Dawson-Theiley House . . . Queen Anne, c. 1880 . . . notable" (page 28). The tall, yellow double to the southwest (5872-4 Rosslyn Avenue) had been a barn. Helen said that the white house north of the double (5878 Rosslyn Avenue) was used by the foreman of the farm containing the barn.

A descendant of Jackson Dawson told me that the Theilig house had been the tenant house for the farm anchored by the big brick house at 1315 Kessler Blvd. East Drive. I had always heard that the brick house was built by a Dawson, but I was recently told that the house was built by Abraham Nicholas, father-in-law of Edith Dawson Nicholas (Mrs. Wilbur Nicholas). The stories seem closely related, yet don't give quite enough information for a solid conclusion. If any Gazette readers have insight into the history of the Theilig house, please let someone at the Gazette know. Better yet, come to a Broad Ripple History Saturday meeting and bring pictures.

One person touched by the legacy of the Theilig family is Stasia Demos, a local attorney and singer-songwriter. She wrote a song called "Pushing Daisies" in memory of Karl Theilig and had performed it at CATH, Inc. I first heard it at the Farmers' Market this summer, when Stasia was one of the featured musicians. She and her guitar were set up at the east end of the market near Helen's bouquet stand.