CRESWELL – Before it closed down in June of 2023, Dan’s Plants wasn’t just that place where you went to pick up some potted plants, fresh herbs, and assorted gardening supplies.
Nope. Stopping by Dan’s Plant’s was more like a ritual, because for many Creswellians, Dan and Peggy Grousbeck operated a Mom-&-Pop store on Davisson Road for 33 years, so many customers, naturally, felt compelled to stop in and say hello.
“He loved everybody and he loved talking to everybody,” Peggy said about Dan, who died last Sunday night, Feb. 8, of heart failure. He was 82. “When we had the nursery, that was his favorite thing, talking.”
If you had a question about plants or trees or what kind of grass to plant, Dan was the man to talk to. Or if you were sort of new in town and were looking for a good plumber or barber or a dependable mechanic, Dan pretty much knew everybody in town. Want to shoot the breeze or talk about the weather?
Dan used to do the weekly weather report for The Chronicle, tracking the high and low temperatures in the area for several years. Before that, he assisted KMTR-TV morning meteorologist Joseph Calbreath.
“Dan’s grandparents on both sides made notes about the weather in their diaries all the time,” Peggy said. “I think that’s where he got that from. He always wrote little notes about the weather. He would always let us know when the moon changed or whenever there was a big weather event.”
The Grousbeck family tree is quite a story in itself, as Dan and Peggy are the fourth generation of Groubecks to have lived in the Creswell area since the 1880s. Since the entire population of Lane County was only around 15,000 in 1890, the Grousbecks had to be one of the first early families to put down roots in Creswell.
Life with Peggy
Dan first met Peggy in high school and proclaimed “I’m going to marry that gal.” Peggy said she just laughed at him for about a year-and-a-half. “Then he asked my mom if he could take me out,” Peggy recalled. They would have been married 62 years next month. They have two daughters – Connie and Vickie.
After growing up in Creswell, Dan had practically every odd job imaginable. He worked at the chicken plant, he was a mailman, a milkman, and a school bus driver – in Creswell and Cottage Grove, before a back injury forced him to look at some other options.
“He couldn’t bend over, so he got some flowers and plants together in the backyard,” Peggy said. “We put up a greenhouse. It was just going to be a hobby at first.”
Pretty soon, that little hobby turned into one of Lane County’s finest flower and plant stores.
“We still get people who want to know where they can get flowers – he always likes seeing people at Bi-Mart who ask him for advice; that always made him feel like he still had an important reason to be hanging around.
“He would always have an answer for everything – I was a worker, I put things together – and he did the ordering. We kept peace in the family that way. I let him do the vegetable deals, I liked to do the plant arrangements, so it all worked out.”
Verne Baarstad, Dan’s brother-in-law, said, “I’ll always remember his big old smile. He was always so positive. It didn’t matter who you were, he made you feel important.”
In Baarstad’s eyes, Creswell has now lost a pair of local legends, after the March 2024 passing of local car aficionado Al January.
“He and Al January were two of a kind – he was truly a Creswell boy. It was in his DNA.”
“He always liked to do things his way,” Peggy said. “That was Dan.”
Dan’s memorial is set for Feb. 28 from 1-4 p.m. at Creswell Community Center. Whether or not you can make it to the ceremony, consider this: It’s almost springtime, so it’s a perfect chance to get a young tree, a potted plant, or something nice for your yard. Who knows, it might even turn into a conversation piece.
That would really make Dan happy.
