Peninsula In Passage

The Lancasters, who had no children, took pride in their “sons,” the young men Lancaster mentored in the nursery business. Sawyer was the Lancasters’ paperboy and worked on the Coleman growing farm along with Kevin Alston, the current assistant superintendent of Suffolk Public Schools. He remembers that Junie and Millie Lancaster supported their “boys, “ and came to their football games, weddings and other life events. “I’ll be eternally grateful to Millie and Junie,” Sawyer says. “They helped mold my life and develop me.” In the 1980’s Junie designated him as heir to the business, Sawyer remembers, and offered him an apprenticeship. “I didn’t realize it would be a 20 year apprenticeship,” Sawyer says remembering he did everything from planting azaleas to running the place. “I was on a mission and had trust in Junie – he told me he’d teach me everything in an apprenticeship and he did.” Sawyer and John Lancaster are partners in Bennett’s Creek Nursery that now has distribution centers in Williamsburg, Currituck and Virginia Beach as well as Bennett’s Creek. John Lancaster, Senior Vice president of the nursery, is Junie Lancaster’s nephew and another of his protégés. The son of an ammunition inspector with the Army, John Lancaster lived in Germany, Hawaii, California and Washington DC before he volunteered for the Army and served a year in the infantry in Vietnam. He had been a professional firefighter in Fairfax County for 11 years when he got a call from Junie Lancaster in 1981 to come back “home.” He says It was the right time and you didn’t tell Junie “No.” Coming back to Bennett’s Creek was a career deal with Junie. The nursery was a big learning thing for me – I really didn’t know a lot about the industry.

Junie could give you hell during the day but when you left he’d pat you on the back and you’d want to come back the next day. One time he wanted the plants covered to protect them against an incoming snowstorm. It was late in the afternoon, getting dark and I said we couldn’t do it. “Don’t ever tell me you can’t,” Junie said. That was the maddest I had ever seen him. MIlie Lancaster

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