Truckin' on the Western Branch

Then he worked for the Virginia railroad for 14–15 years as a bookkeeper. I got a job with the C & P Telephone Company as a supervisor in the employment office in Portsmouth. We loved to go dancing at the Navy Yard or the Cavalier Club—the Black Bottom and the Charleston.

We bought a house in Westhaven and went to Mr. Coleman’s place to buy plants, shrubs, and flowers. He took Junie under his wing because he had no children. He called Junie “Duke,” and Junie called him “Chief.”

Junie joined Coleman’s, and I did all the bookkeeping. Floyd Twiford and Dabney Morgan worked for Junie. When Mr. Coleman left the business to Junie, he added a garden center, gift shop, and candy store to keep us busy in the winter. Then in the mid 1960s, he had an idea for Winter Wonderland—several hundred animated figures. We traveled the world collecting toys and trains. He set up the Coleman room for the community to use and always told me “making people happy makes me smile.” Floyd and Judy Twiford Visitors to Coleman’s Nursery rarely saw Floyd Twiford without his Dalmatian, Rescue, a cigar and his ever-present red plaid cap. The cap that was originally a gift from a friend, a way to find Twiford in the sprawling nursery, became his signature. He now owns several.

Born in Colerain, North Carolina, in 1928, Twiford came to Norfolk when he was 15 years old and graduated from Maury High School. He served in the Marines for nine years, including a stint at Wallops Island during the Korean War.

When Mr. Coleman hired me in 1959 as sales manager, he told me I’d never be sorry. I wasn’t. Mr. Meisenheimer, who then had a nursery across the street, at one time owned the land Coleman’s was on. He threatened to drive Mr. Coleman off the corner.

Millie Lancaster. Image by Sheally

When we started the Winter Wonderland, animated figures were very inexpensive—$125 for a nice one. We bought the entire nativity scene for $2,700, but years later when we had to replace the main figures, the three kings were $1,200 each. But we recycled—the old Virgin Mary became a Victorian Lady. We kept adding figures, German figurines, and it sort of got away from us with trying to do a new scene every year. The figure quality went down and the prices went up. I used to dream about the Christmas displays at night. At Halloween we had a haunted house, and for Easter we had an Easter display. But at night the rabbits ate the shoes off the figures displayed above them. Then they escaped from their cage the next morning—30 rabbits running loose with us running to retrieve them. Junie sold the business and land to Dabney Morgan and me in 1979 when the nursery had 22 full-time employees. New Year’s Eve 1982, a young kid tore out a window air conditioning unit and torched the place, starting the fire that swept through the wooden sheds decorated with faux snow, greenery, and the figures. He got 10 years for arson. I got the call, and when I came down High Street and saw the smoke, I knew it was gone. We never closed while we rebuilt.

Floyd and Judy Twiford. Image by Sheally

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