Katy in Bloom

Spring has started to nudge its way though the door in Milwaukee. It was the warmest day yet in 2019 when Katy came into the hotel for a lunch date with her sweetheart, Chris. Together the pair share four cats and a passion for plants. Chris has filled the inside of their home with lush succulents, while Katy prefers to fill the yard with blooming flowers. Nurturers by nature, the couple love tending to living things and watch them grow.

The daughter of avid gardeners, Katy’s love of flowers was cultivated by a key influence in her life, her grandmother, Flo. Now 82 years old, she was a trail-blazing business woman in an era where few women were working along side her in the financial sector. Proud of her accomplishments, Flo instilled into Katy the belief that she, like her grandmother, could achieve anything she wanted to do.  Flo’s unconditional love was paired encouragement, and those two ever-present gifts gave Katy the confidence to bloom, just like one of Flo’s beloved zinnias she plants each year.

This cultivator sows the seeds of kindness wherever she goes, whether she is developing programs to boost the self-esteem in young women, and comforting those in hospice, as she has done in the past, or delighting children with fanciful tales and spreading joy with her art as she does now, hearts grow and smiles bloom where she has been. Her deeds are as varied as the dahlias she loves to grow, and like the multi-hued, intricately petaled flowers, they become more delightful upon closer inspection.

Just like spring itself, she fluttered in and out of the hotel quickly, leaving all in her wake a little warmer and with wider smiles.