Annie Hannah Darbee

Pioneer florist and flower grower. She operated Darbee Florist at 1036 Hyde Street, San Francisco in the 1920's-1940's. Annie Darbee was from a pre-Gold Rush pioneer family in the Bay Area. She moved to San Leandro in 1894 where her family had a large ranch where they fished oyster beds and eventually grew commercial lilies developed her talent for raising flowers and was the first to raise the "Giant" violet which was shipped to florists around the country before age 21. Following the 1906 earthquake, Annie bought several lots on Hyde Street and built several apartment buildings, one of which was where her florist shop was located. She also purchased land in Oregon and Siskiyou and Sonoma Counties in order to grow bulbs for her business. It was during her many trips to her land in the north that she was attracted to Indian baskets. She became a personal friend with many weavers and her estates contained a box of correspondence from various weavers over the years. Her basket collection at death comprised over 350 baskets, primarily examples of the Pomo, Yurok and Karuk. The Darbee collection was placed on the market late in 1990 after her son died. One such basket sold for $25,000. She purchased 30 acres in Colma to raise violets and other flowers. Up through World War I she shipped 85% of all cut flowers sent out of the state. Later she was a major grower of tulips and narcissus in the Pacific Northwest where she shipped bulbs from her farm in Tillamook, Oregon.She was a pioneer flower grower and shipper, supplying florists in every city in the U.S. and Canada. This business was developed from a small home violet garden planted by a schoolgirl to pay her way at school. That garden grew until it became one of the largest violet gardens on the Pacific coast. The successful shipping of violets to Eastern cities by a method discovered by Mrs. Darbee when she fulfilled her promises to Eastern florists to send them a box of California violets when she returned home from a European trip, and it created a demand for other California flowers to where most every kind of variety of flower grown in California was able to be forwarded. She was also a life member of the Society of American Florists & Ornamental Horticulturalists and a pioneer member of FTD. She was also president of Memorial City Inc., a group which planned to build a garden cemetery in Colma modeled after the one in Genoa, Italy. Was originally buried in the family plot of her husband, Robert, in the San Lorenzo (California) Historical Park Cemetery, but both have been disinterred and inurned at Grace Cathedral Columbarium, San Francisco, CA.