Steele’s Pansy Gardens 
Our Isabelle 
PORTLAND, OREGON, U. S. A. 
HOWDY FOLKS! 
Greetings to you! And you!! and especially you!!! 
I was born in our pansy gardens and so were my three brothers and a 
sister. When I was seven years old there was nothing my sister and I 
could use for money except the proceeds from the sale of blooming pansy 
plants. 
With this happy thought in mind, we took some of Pop’s splint baskets 
and packing a dozen nice assorted colors in each container, we went 
blithely forth to canvass the neighbors at a “bargain price” of fifty cents 
per basket. 
It happened there was a very “tuff” lot of boys nearby and unless we 
had a big boy as a body-guard, sister and I had to keep close together, and 
did we “clean up” on those marauding imps? Guess! 
Our office is in our home. In the center are two mammoth flat top 
desks—twins—to accommodate the cashier, yours truly, and three assist¬ 
ants. Seed cases on three sides of the office. A large fire proof safe is 
stuffed with bags full of bulk seed including a sack of small packets of priceless novelties and selections of specimen 
plant seeds from all our catalog varieties—all absolutely priceless and for our trial gardens in our city gardens and 
at our ranch. 
On the walls, a picture of a past famous president and a letter from the White House. “Pop” in his more youthful 
days mounted on his famous thorobred, and plenty of calendars! Here let me mention a profound secret (I must 
whisper it to you). "Pop” is very fond of Beautiful Lady Calendars! 
The thrills of the day begin with the arrival of the morning mail at 8:30. The first assistant cuts all sealed 
containers, and second assistant “opens’ the letters and sorts out all cash with ordeis and stamps each ordei with date 
received, and amount of cash or checks enclosed. Kept separate are all lequests foi catalogs, ety' and othei infoi- 
mation There are letters of praise and thanks and sometimes the genial gentleman of yesterday has had a bad night 
of it and wakes up in the morning to take it out on us instead of his own hired man! It’s funny, but “Pop” never 
never gets “sore”. He says he can remember in days gone by when he felt just like that. 
One dav a new customer on the Atlantic Coast mailed us an order and three days later there came a “hot" letter- 
“Win the delay in sending mv order?” And so to wake us up properly, he sent in a complaint to our friend the 
Editor of the New York Florists Exchange. Thus his complaint was mailed one day before we received his ordei. 
This happened in Prohibition days. 
:ash book and yours truly makes out invoices in duplicate and shipping 
?ach item on invoice, which is passed to second assistant 
Third assistant enters remittances in cast 
containers to match. First assistant then fills oiders, checking ea , , , , • , 
who re-checks same. Then all orders are sealed and stamped for mailing: and finally total number of orders receive 
is checked against total number ready for shipment. 
“Pop” says “What can be more important than great care in germination of vour pansy seed? 1 here are several 
ways you can lose the most perfect seed, through lack of care. Please believe me when I say, there is never any old 
or imperfect seed in this office and therefore could not be sent out by mistake . Last summer came an order from a 
lady of over eighty, who with her husband had been a customer of more than twenty years, until he passed on. From 
that time she carried on her small industry alone. 
“Dear Sirs- While I have never made a complaint before, at this time 1 am positive you have mixed 
the seed you sent me including seed one year old, two years old and three years old. I can tell by the 
way it came up.” 
We replaced the order, but ‘Pop wrote, 
“Dear Mrs. X: Watch germination and consider this—if you were in the egg business, and you sold 
a doubtful egg and a bad egg with every good egg, how long would your business last?” 
Too much to tell you about our office, but what a joy it would be to all of us if you could visit us. Father, mother, 
sister Irene, and brothers E. T. Jr., and Donald. “Pop” says, “Every customer 1 have ever met was glad to see me. 
I hope it may always be thus and it is up to all of you in the office to make it so and we of the I ansy fields will do 
0Urpart ’” Cheerio! 
