[This is an article from the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, entitled ``Green
Thumb'', by Michael Kline.  It must have been printed about 1987.]

Carl Theiss started gardening at a small Iowa fairgrounds 71 years ago, and
he hasn't stopped since.

Along the way, Thiess, of 559 1/2 Dewey St., has worked for numerous
nurseries and greenhouses.  Even when he worked as a traveling salesman, he
visited greenhouses along his route to discuss the latest gardening
techniques.

Now, at 84, Theiss tends the potted plants at L. E. Phillips Senior
Central, as well as his plants at home.

Theiss first became interested in gardening when he was very young and lived
with his grandmother who liked to garden, he said.  In 1919, when Theiss was
16 years old and lived on a farm two miles outside Fort Dodge, Iowa, he
showed an interest in the plant displays at the fairgrounds in Fort Dodge.

He was put in charge of the vegetable, fruit and flower displays at the
fairgrounds.  He tended and arranged the plants, he said.

When Theiss was 19, he organized a gardening club in Fort Dodge that is still
in operation today.  He also started doing work with the horticulture
department at Iowa State Unviersity in Ames, Iowa, where he took some
courses, he said.

After that, he worked as a salesman for a nursery in Iowa for about 10 years.
In the '30s, he became a custodian at the Fort Dodge YMCA but still gardened,
he said.

In 1942, Theiss went into the service, joining the Seabees, ``the outlaws of
the Navy,'' he said with a chuckle.  He spent 30 months in the Pacific during
the war, including 10 months at Midway Island.  While there, he helped
organize a library, he said.

After the war, Theiss spent some time in a training school in Iowa.  Then he
spent the next several years workinga t a succession of nursery and
greenhouse jobs in Iowa and southern Minnesota.

Later, he moved to Minneapolis to work for another greenhouse.  Theiss
enjoyed living in Minneapolis because he had a chance to visit many
greenhouses, he said.

Then Theiss took a job as a salesman for Encyclopedia Brittanica, for whom he
worked for 13 years in the late 1950s and the 1960s.

During that time, he traveled around five states, driving 45,000 to 50,000
miles a year, he said.  But that didn't keep him away from gardening.  While
on the road, he often visited greenhouses to discuss new developments in
gardening, he said.

Theiss retired and came to Eau Claire in 1963 and has been here since,
working occasional odd jobs.  But even retirement didn't stop his gardening.

Theiss spends several hours a day gardening the plants at Senior Central and
at home.  His favorite plants are flowers that grow from bulbs, such as
tulips, crocuses, hyacinths and amaryllises.

Theiss said he likes gardening because of the different possibilities of
development and the changing of the colors.  Theiss used to have an extensive
flower garden in his fron and back yard at home, bu ``I'm getting too old to
do that crawling around,'' he said.

He still tries to keep up with the industry.  Even now, if he were to take a
trip to Milwaukee or Chicago, he would visit a greenhouse or two on the way,
Theiss said.

And Theiss always hastime to do some free gardening.  For instance, he
planted most of the flowers at Epiphany Lutheran Church, 1223 Bellinger St.,
especially on the north side.  It is mostly foliage that grows in the shade
-- bleeding hearts, impatiens, and ferns, he said.

``I did it because I wanted to.  They had no plants,'' he said.