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Posted By: William Brainard <wbrainard@juno.com>
Date: Thursday, 6 December 2001, at 11:14 p.m.
In the late 1970s, my dad, older brother and I went with Fran Funk and found the holly tree that my father's mother and aunts had taken sprigs off of when they were young girls in the 1890s. As best as I can remember, we hiked up the CL&P right of way off Old Eagleville Road in Coventry, moved to the right and suddenly the tree was in front of us, nearly 30 feet tall and with the holly leaves starting about 10 feet up the trunk. Years later, the historical society in Coventry tried to find the holly tree but to no avail. In the years since our journey up the hill, developers have staked the area with their machines of destruction. Somewhere we have color photos of the great specimen. It was very obvious that it was *the* holly tree my dad recalled from his youth. The green leaves were the only live thing in that sunny winter wonderland on that afternoon so many years ago! Before she died in the late 1990s, I asked Corinne Pender, Coventry native for 90 years,if she remembered such a tree. She said she did and it was in the same place that Mrs. Funk and my family hiked that winter of 1977.