Cloverdale’s annual Day of Remembrance once again saw students being handed bouquets of brightly-colored daffodils as they walked across the Cloverdale High School campus. High schoolers walking toward their lunch period on Feb. 25 were given a bouquet of 16 daffodils and a tag with the names of the people the daffodils are meant to honor — young people, former Cloverdale High School (CHS) students, who lost their lives to cancer.
Every year, Merle Reuser and a group of devoted volunteers — some being parents who have lost their own children to cancer — hand out the bouquets.
This year, 320 bouquets were created to be given out at CHS, totaling around 5,200 daffodils. In minutes — seemingly quicker than the past few years — all were gone.
Cloverdale’s Remembrance Day began as Courtney Davis Day, to honor Courtney Jade Davis, who died from cancer in 2008 at the age of 16. Her age is the reason behind putting together bouquets of 16. After a few years of celebrating Courtney Davis Day, the event morphed into one that honored the lives of more Cloverdale kids who died from cancer.
As bouquets are cut, collected and put together, a tag listing the names of six former CHS students — Courtney Jade Davis, Phillip McCutchan, Andrea Perez, Justin Rainwater, Mariah Roat, JoAnna Lynn Wegener — is added to each bunch of flowers.
Giving out the daffodils is a way for Reuser to continue a promise he made to Margaret Kohler Adams. Before Adams died in 2000 at the age of 104, Reuser promised her that he would maintain her tradition of giving away daffodils — something that her and Reuser did together while he was growing up.
In the 1950s and ’60s, Adams gave away bouquets of daffodils from the field around her property, oftentimes with Reuser in tow. However, after Reuser graduated high school, fewer daffodils made their way into the hands of Cloverdalians, and in the 1990s, he began handing out the flowers again.
Since 1999, it’s been Reuser’s plan to give away one ton of daffodils. The daffodils are provided by the estate of Adams, and are also donated by Ann Elston and Larry Lossing.
Adams’ and now Reuser’s tradition of giving away mass amounts of daffodils has resulted in Sonoma County being named the “Daffodil Giveaway Capital of the World,” according to a 2015 article from the quarterly Daffodil Journal.
On Feb. 25, Reuser estimated that he gives away an additional 20,000 daffodils over a three-month period — he hands them out to churches, downtown businesses, neighbors, anyone and everyone he can think of.
The daffodils came about a week early this year, he said, though over time he’s seen bloom dates fluctuate with the weather.
“By the end of the (season), I’m daffodil-ed out,” Reuser said.
