Mildred
Laurin Wellensiek was born in Hope, Hempstead Co., Arkansas, February 9, 1905,
the daughter of Louis H. and Mable Wellensiek. She married Robert Way Schlumpf
in October 1925, in Houston, Texas. They had two sons, Robert and Norman.
Mildred's nickname was Millie.
She was a soprano soloist at Bethany Christian Church in Houston, Texas, since 1937, until her death in 1992.
Mildred was well-known for her garden hats. She wore many, the most famous (pictured on the left) being a flat plastic hat with concentric circles cut out in the center.
Mildred joined American Hemerocallis Society (AHS) in 1951 and served as AHS Treasurer in 1975.
During the years 1976-80, Mildred served as the AHS Slide Librarian, and was responsible for many of the daylily programs that were rented by clubs. Mildred always took two slides of each daylily, one for herself and one for the AHS Library.
In 1969, she established the annual Robert Way Schlumpf Memorial Award (now named the Mildred Schlumpf Award in her honor) for the winner of the best slide of an individual bloom and the best slide of a daylily landscape. Beginning in 1970, she presented engraved silver trays to the winners, and their winning slides were made a part of the AHS Slide Library. She was an excellent photographer, and her huge collection of daylily slides went to the AHS Slide Library after her death. Many of those bloom slides are now being digitized for use by the AHS Historic Daylily Committee, which is evaluating historic cultivar images for placement on the AHS online database.
In 1983, Mildred was honored as the recipient of the Helen Field Fischer Award for service to AHS. She was very proud of that award and had it mounted in gold and wore it as a pendant.
Mildred had served in every office of the Houston Area Daylily Society. She served the club as President in 1968-69 and 1972-74. Her flower arrangements almost always won blue ribbons or the Tricolor Award in the flower shows. She served as 1970-71 Region 6 RVP.
From 1951-72, Mildred registered 37 daylilies. Some of her most famous were Hemerocallis 'Silver Butterfly' (1979), H. 'Velvet Apple' (1968), and H. 'Ruffled Panties' (1970). Mildred was a very proper lady and it was ironic that she would name a daylily 'Ruffled Panties'.
Mildred died on September 1, 1992. She had been talking and laughing only three days before her death at a meeting of the Houston Area Daylily Society, telling someone that she didn't want to live in a retirement home "with all those OLD people."
She loved daylilies so much that she had daylilies carved on her tombstone.
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Revised: 01/21/2024
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