JUNIUS P. FISHBURN

By JESSE WILLS

[A.I.S. Bulletin 134(July 1954): 30-33.]

Junius Fishburn, who passed away of a stroke in Washington, D.C. on March 24, 1954, was born in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1895. He was educated at Mercersburg Academy, Princeton, and Columbia University, although his education was interrupted by service in the Navy during the First World War. He took on great business responsibilities very early. After previous service as Vice-President, in 1923 he became President of the TimesWorldCorporation which publishes the Roanoke Times and the Roanoke World-News. Newspaper work in turn led him into radio, and he was in Washington at the time of his death in connection with an application for a television channel.

Like many men of prominence, ability and public spirit, he was brought into more and more civic and business activities so that the boards on which he served and the offices he held were legion. He was particularly interested in educational work, at the time of his death being on the Board of Visitors of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the Board of Trustees of Hollins College, and the Board of Regents of Mercersburg Academy. Besides his father and two sisters, he is survived by his wife, Catherine Nelson Fishburn, a daughter, Mrs. George H. Fulton, Jr., and a son, Robert Nelson Fishburn.

He was one of the first citizens, not only of Roanoke, but also of all Virginia, and in many ways was nationally prominent. This had to do with his business and public life. What were his relations to the Iris Society and the flowers we cherish? He was not a prominent breeder and was never President of the American Iris Society, although he should and would have been had his circumstances permitted, yet during the period of his activity no one was more prominent, or made a greater impression in the iris world. I am not sure exactly when he started growing irises, but he joined the American Iris Society in 1931 and soon became an enthusiastic and discriminating collector who made a point of traveling around to see and appraise new irises. This included attending the Annual Meetings, and his business ability was soon used. In 1937 he took the place of Robert Sturtevant on the Board of Directors and at the same time replaced Mr. Richardson Wright as Treasurer of the Society. He continued as Director until January 1949 when he resigned because of the press of his business activities. He was Treasurer from 1937 until 1943, when he became Vice-President. At his retirement in 1949 he was given, and well deserved, the Society's medal for Distinguished Service.

It was my pleasure to serve on the Board of Directors with him for a number of years, and I can bear witness to the wisdom and balance of his judgments. He mixed common sense with a quiet sense of humor, and every President with whom he served relied heavily on his advice. The first great iris contribution of Junius Fishburn was in helping to direct the business affairs of the Society during a period of change and growth. His other, and perhaps greater, contribution was in creating interest in iris growing, in giving encouragement to breeders, and in appraising and advertising the virtues of new irises being introduced from 1935 on. He acquired and maintained the best collection of new irises in the United States, beautifully grown in a lovely garden. In connection with this, he did an amazing amount of traveling during iris season every spring for a period of years. It is hard to see how he traveled so much in view of his multifold other interests, and it was only done by economy of time and out of his great enthusiasm. He never stayed long at one place, being here today and somewhere else tomorrow, and he took advantage of the staggered iris bloom from North to South, getting in many week end visits, while carrying on his own business or attending Board meetings inbetween. In 1939, for instance, he was in both Southern and Northern California in connection with the Annual Meeting, then he returned to his own garden for his season, after which he visited gardens in Pennsylvania, New York, Fort Wayne, Bluffton, and Chicago, finally winding up in New England. This was not exceptioinal because in 1940 he saw gardens at Duke University, Spartanburg, Nashville, his own garden in Roanoke, New York, the Sasses in Nebraska, Mrs. Whiting in Iowa, Elkhart, Bluffton, Chicago, and New England, and wound up this time in Ithaca, New York, with Col. Nichols.

His first varietal notes appeared in the Bulletin in July, 1935. During the next few years, however, he preferred to circulate typewritten notes among some of his friends. Although always fair, these were sometimes rather frank, containing criticism as well as praise, and he hesitated to submit them to the Bulletin. He was an excellent judge, and as word of his notes got around more and more people asked for copies. Finally in 1939 he had them privately printed. This was a good sized booklet which contained first a geographical discussion of the different gardens with the irises seen therein; then a list of varietal comments arranged alphabetically, which covered 282 varieties; and finally a discussion of irises by color groups. This attracted such attention that the Editor reprinted it in Bulletin 73. This may confuse some people since the Bulletin is listed as that of April, but the Bulletins were considerably off schedule at the time and this one did not actually appear until late in the year. After this his comments on the irises of the season appeared in the Bulletin nearly every year through 1945.

Junius Fishburn's health had never been too good, as from young manhood he had suffered from a peculiar form of high blood pressure. He was intermittently taking treatments for this or on a diet to reduce it. The burdens of his business and civic responsibilities also continually increased, and gradually his iris interest was forced into the background to some extent. He was a perfectionist and was considerably upset when his garden was very heavily hit and disfigured by bacterial leaf blight. For a while he got more pleasure out of his early spring garden and his hemerocallis, but he never entirely lost his interest in irises. He visited us in Nashville unexpectedly for a night and a day in 1951 and again in 1953. I will always remember his last visit, which was the last time I saw him. I had not heard from him for about a year until he called me up one day at the beginning of the iris season and asked about my bloom. I told him, while we had some frost damage, it promised on the whole to be very good. He told me he was flying over. Dave and Mrs. Hall were in Nashville at the time, and we enjoyed the get-together. He was very interested in the new irises and his judgment was as good as ever. He consulted me about some new things he was thinking of getting and entered into correspondence again with various breeders and dealers. He was giving up some of his business responsibilities and all of us were looking forward to a real revival of his iris interest and activity. This was not to be. A fine gentleman has left his mark.

-- DavidPotembski - 2014-01-24