In my research for A Buss from Lafayette, I learned that during his Farewell Tour of the U.S. in 1824-5, he had a constant problem: everywhere he went, people gave him flowers. At times, the carriages he rode in were filled with them. When this happened, he and his entourage would look for places where they could dump the flowers out of view of the people who had given them to him.
Here's how my main character, Clara, describes what she witnesses in A Buss from Lafayette:
I sat up in the water to peer through the woods toward the road. A six-horse stagecoach soon pulled partway into the woods and came to a stop. Perhaps the horses need a drink of water, I thought, puzzled.
But instead of someone unhitching the team so the horses could drink from the brook, someone inside started throwing things out the coach windows. Brightly colored things. Red and yellow and white and pink and . . . Why, they are roses! Hundreds of roses! I thought. Those men are throwing roses into the woods. What on earth is going on?
Here's how my main character, Clara, describes what she witnesses in A Buss from Lafayette:
I sat up in the water to peer through the woods toward the road. A six-horse stagecoach soon pulled partway into the woods and came to a stop. Perhaps the horses need a drink of water, I thought, puzzled.
But instead of someone unhitching the team so the horses could drink from the brook, someone inside started throwing things out the coach windows. Brightly colored things. Red and yellow and white and pink and . . . Why, they are roses! Hundreds of roses! I thought. Those men are throwing roses into the woods. What on earth is going on?
—A Buss from Lafayette © 2016 by Dorothea Jensen
When he came to New Hampshire in late June of 2025, the roses were in full bloom in the state, so many of the flowers presented to him were roses. Below I am posing with New Hamphire roses in full bloom in my back yard during the last week of June 2020. I could have given General Lafayette quite a few roses if he came by my house today - as he actually did on June 27, 2020.
Here is how I imagined Lafayette describing what usually happened as he went through this or any other of the states he visited:
“Sir?” I called, covered in confusion as much as I was in brook water. “Why are they throwing these roses away?”
He laughed. “It is a bit of a guilty secret, mademoiselle.” His words were slow and deliberate. “You see, everywhere I go, people keep giving me roses, roses, and more roses! Whatever I ride in— be it barouche, or curricle, or coach—it is filled to overflowing with them! Because of this, every once in a while I must tell the small lie—that I must make the stop that is necessary—and that I need my privacy. Then I find a secluded nook like this and we cast out all the pretty flowers. Please do not tell anyone. I beg of you.”
—A Buss from Lafayette © 2016 by Dorothea Jensen
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