Peony Fest born during Great Depression

Editor’s note: This article, written to promote the upcoming Peony Festival and Peony Pageant events, details the creation of the Peony Festival back in 1932.

Peony Festival Committee information

In 1932 there wasn’t a lot to celebrate. America was trying to recover from the catastrophic Great Depression. Hunger marches were advocating unemployment insurance. Unemployment was high and child labor was “normal”.

Van Wert businessmen had started a program called Prosperity Checks in an effort to stimulate the local economy; and Al Capone and his gang were in their heyday in Chicago.

But Van Wert had her “pineys”, as grandma called them. Peonies grew in large fields, and personal gardens alike. People came from all over to admire the dazzling array of color and heady aroma of Van Wert’s peonies, leading to Van Wert being called the “Peony Capital of the World”.

A group of Van Wert businessmen had an idea and it was C.D. Pennell, president of what was then known as the Van Wert Men’s Garden Club, and Rev E.E. Snyder who announced the coming of the first Peony Festival at a meeting of the Van Wert Rotary Club.

The Van Wert High School band then toured 11 Ohio and Indiana towns to advertise the coming of the Peony Festival. On May 6, Rheba Dougal was crowned the first Peony Festival queen, and she and her court reigned over that first two-day festival. Their float was the grandest of the 29 floats, 12 bands and 10 other units in that first parade, with several hundred onlookers. A large portion of the expense was raised by charging for seats in bleachers set up along the parade route to watch the parade.

The Peony Festival was born.

In the years to come, an estimated 20,000 people would attend the Peony Festival. There were two parades, one during the day and one in the evening, and by 1941 the parade commentary was aired over three radio stations. Professional float builders came to Van Wert to offer their services to organizations that wanted to have the very best float in the parade.

Then came that terrible declaration “war”; and the Peony Festival had to be set aside as Van Wert, like the rest of America turned her eyes to the business of protecting freedom during World War II. It would be more than a decade until the Peony Festival returned to Van Wert.