After 35 years, Barstow florist, Juliette Tison, plans to retire

BARSTOW • Juliette Tison has provided flowers for life’s beginning, life’s end and every milestone in between for more than 30 years.

Since opening the Barstow Flower and Bridal Boutique in the early 1980s, Tison is the person who may have provided the balloons at a daughter’s graduation or assembled that last minute bouquet of roses a husband would use to apologize. Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Mother’s Day are all busy times for her. One woman liked Tison’s flower arrangements so much she used them in three of her weddings. After many years of serving the same customers it’s no surprise that the chamber awarded Tison 2009 Small Business of the Year.

For Tison, who is just a few months shy of her 71st birthday, winning the award is “a crowning achievement.”

Tison has survived breast cancer twice, and began radiation treatment for uterine cancer Monday. She’ll receive treatment five days a week for five weeks. After 35 years of doing business in Barstow, Tison says she will retire after Mother’s Day.

“I need to take care of my health,” she said, adding that she has six grandchildren who live out of town that she’d like to see. “After 35 years (the award is) acknowledging the fact that I spent so much time and dedication. Customers are the most important part of our business.”

Tison began doing business in Barstow as the Crafty Planter in 1975 before opening Barstow Flower and Bridal Boutique. Tison has served on the Haley House board, helped organize Fourth-of-July events and has been a Soroptimist. And it was she who brought the Main Street Murals idea from a small logging town on Vancouver Island in Canada to Downtown Barstow.

“I went to Canada with my mother and I saw what they had done,” she said, adding that Chemainus, British Columbia, was a town of 3,000 people. “I brought the idea back here and got the community involved.”

Jane Laraman-Brockhurst and her husband David met Tison about four years ago at a Main Street Murals Meeting. Laraman-Brockhurst, who is the current president, credits Tison with building pride in the Barstow community.

“She’s a very hard worker and she’s very determined and that’s what a community needs,” Laraman-Brockhurst said. “In my mind she should be woman of the year. The determination that she just shows with her own personal health problems that she’s recently had is just the way she deals with life.”

Bonnie Drury, who has survived uterine cancer herself, has worked with Tison since 1985. Even though the methods today are different than they were in 1980 when Drury had cancer, she says she can relate to what Tison is going through. Tison often calls Drury her right and left hands.

“My being here gave her an opportunity to be involved, that’s what she always says,” Drury said. “She has shown and taught me what it means to be courageous. And we’re friends as well as co-workers.”

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or jcejnar@desertdispatch.com