Grandma Goes to Hollywood

Willella at age 4. At right is one of the family's greenhouses.

In the late 1950s, my maternal grandmother, Willella McCurdy, was working hard in her flower shop in Texarkana, Arkansas, to support her aging mother and two children. But for one week, Willella became Cinderella as she took her floral-arranging skills to Beverly Hills for a once-in-a-lifetime experience filled with celebrities and fancy balls.