On Jan­u­ary 11^th, 2024, in plant­i­ng the seed for May­or Ronald Mor­rell, Jr.‘s ​“Clean City 2.0” ini­tia­tive, Mar­i­on intro­duced a city flower: the white daisy, inspired by a piece of Mar­i­on’s history.

A promi­nent his­tor­i­cal fig­ure in Mar­i­on is Marie Web­ster — one of America’s first female entre­pre­neurs, and an influ­en­tial quilt design­er from the ear­ly 1900s. Her fam­i­ly home, now known as the Marie Web­ster House and home of the Quil­ters Hall of Fame, is where she plant­ed a gar­den which served as inspi­ra­tion in design­ing her pio­neer­ing quilt patterns.

“Marie was the first per­son to write a his­to­ry of quilts. She was a clever busi­ness woman, run­ning her cot­tage indus­try for 30 years. Her flo­ral appliqué designs cre­at­ed at the height of the Arts and Crafts move­ment are still wide­ly appre­ci­at­ed and imi­tat­ed today, more than a cen­tu­ry after her designs were first pub­lished,” — Deb Gey­er, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Quil­ters Hall of Fame

The white daisy is fea­tured in one of Webster’s quilts and quilt pat­terns sold all over the world.

The image of the white daisy is pop­ping up around town, and the com­mu­ni­ty is encour­aged to plant them around their homes and places of busi­ness to cel­e­brate Marion’s new jour­ney toward a clean­er city. The flower is con­nect­ing the com­mu­ni­ty as the first phase of Clean City 2.0 — May­or Morrell’s ini­tia­tive to regen­er­ate Mar­i­on while pay­ing homage to cam­paigns of the past.

“I pledge to the cit­i­zens a ded­i­ca­tion to enhanc­ing the clean­li­ness of our city. The launch of Clean City 2.0 and a city flower marks the fruition of that com­mit­ment. This endeav­or not only hon­ors our rich his­to­ry, but intro­duces a con­tem­po­rary per­spec­tive as we embark on a com­pre­hen­sive effort to ele­vate the stan­dards of clean­li­ness in our community.” 

- May­or Ronald Mor­rell, Jr.

Print­able Flower Card

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