Each spring at about this time, David Cecchi’s garden is filled with deep purple blooms of Siberian iris.
The plants carry the story of his family and, in a way that many gardeners can appreciate, they bring comfort, joy and remembrance.
While the Cecchi family name in Agawam is most closely associated with the vegetable farmland now tended by his two brothers, it is from his maternal grandfather, Ted Dynia, that the story of the iris grows.
Dynia grew up south of the state line in one of the Polish enclaves in Enfield’s Thompsonville section. Drafted into the Army late in World War II, he was off to serve with a tank battalion in Italy without even having graduated from high school, his grandson shares.
Ted Dynia’s story is “really the story of post-World War II America,” Cecchi says. Dynia would return home from the war and get right to work with the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., employed with the company for more than 30 years as a produce manager in stores around Western Massachusetts.
Thus came the draw to settle in Agawam with his wife, Helen. In 1950, he bought a house and five neighboring building lots along Springfield Street. The property, once owned by the town’s police chief, Perley Hewey, proved the perfect spot for Ted and Helen Dynia to raise their four children, who included David Cecchi’s late mother, Emily.
Helen Dynia, wife of Ted Dynia, is seen here on Mother's Day 1956 with her daughters, Lynn, left, and Emily. A lilac and forsythia hedge bloom in background along 468 Springfield St. where the family lived. (DAVID CECCHI PHOTO)Third Party submitted
Ted would go back to school in the early 1960s to earn his high school diploma. He also found many a way to serve his adopted community as a longtime member of the Planning Board and the Housing Authority. It was a time, his grandson says, when Agawam was confronting growth and development issues that didn’t always make Dynia the most popular man in town.
“He had his values, and he lived his values and his convictions,” Cecchi says. “He was not always on the popular side of things. I can remember seeing one line when he ran for Planning Board that read, ‘Lone Democrat wins.’ He tended always to be on the other side (of issues).”
At home, though, the once empty lots he had bought proved Dynia’s garden of Eden on Earth, not just for him and his children but eventually also his grandchildren. A family photo from 1951, according to David Cecchi, shows his grandfather amid a mammoth vegetable garden with bean plants brimming with produce. He remembers it as a wonderful playground while growing up.
Ted Dynia, of Agawam, is seen here in a 1954 photo. He was a longtime member of the Agawam Planning Board and Agawam Housing Authority. He died in 1995 at the age of 77. (DAVID CECCHI PHOTO)Third Party submitted
In the years that followed, the three-quarter acre parcel would be filled with apple, willow and catalpa trees. Beds of tulips, daffodils, iris, daylilies, phlox and more would bloom all spring, summer and autumn long.
“His hedge of lilac and forsythia, backed by catalpa trees, provided spring color along Springfield Street for decades,” Cecchi wrote earlier this month in a press release he issued. The release announced his plan to honor his grandfather’s memory by sharing some of latest generation of iris plants with the town and area gardeners.
In the wake of Ted Dynia’s death in 1995 at age 77, the property had become too much for his widow to manage. As the family prepared to sell it, David Cecchi, and his two young sons, Joseph and Bailey, dug up the irises and other perennials to move to his own garden. The boys may have been too young to have known their great-grandfather, but his legacy would live on through his beloved plants.
Thriving for now more than two decades, the Siberian iris became so prolific, according to Cecchi, that they had become a thick, 20-foot bed in need of being divided this year.
In this 1999 photo, Ted Dynia's great-grandsons Joseph and Bailey Cecchi stand near the soon-to-be-moved beds of daylilies and other perennials at the Dynia family home at 468 Springfield St., Agawam. (DAVID CECCHI PHOTO)Third Party submitted
David Cecchi’s hope is that Agawam will be even more colorful next spring. He decided to share clumps of the iris with the Agawam Garden Club for its fundraising plant sale coming up on June 5 at the Feeding Hills Congregational Church.
He also donated hundreds of plants in his grandfather’s memory to the Agawam Beautification Committee for plantings at School Street Park, the Department of Public Works and sites along Main Street.
“This is a really meaningful way to honor my grandfather,” says Cecchi. “He loved flowers, and he loved this town — and my iris beds desperately needed to be thinned.”
Dynia became devoted to Agawam, Cecchi says. From 1952 until his death, he was a member of the Agawam Lions Club. He was elected to the Housing Authority in 1954 and the Planning Board in 1959, serving as its chairman. He was also active in the Faolin Peirce School Parent-Teacher Association, the Agawam Democratic Town Committee, and the Polish Club. In 1994, he was presented the Agawam Citizenship Award by the Town Council.
“This town meant so much to my grandfather. He really loved it even though it wasn’t his hometown,” Cecchi says. “I thought by sharing the iris would be a great way to honor him because he also loved flowers.”
“I think Grandpa would like this. I think he would be happy,” he adds. “He loved plants and flowers. Any flowers blooming would be a good thing in his mind. He was always a positive person and an optimist.”
More irises are available and can be had by contacting Cecchi at 413-786-3236 or email to cecco@davidcecchi.com
Cynthia G. Simison is executive editor of The Republican. She can be reached by email to csimison@repub.com.
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