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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Long-Married Couple Still Toiling Together

Dorothy Yaryan was only 16 when she married her husband John, and she’s hardly been away from him in the 73 years since.

The couple have spent most of their lives working side by side and are still at it. They can be found most mornings working at the Sunset Florist and Greenhouse at the top of the Sunset Hill.

“We’ve been working together one way or another most of our married life,” Dorothy said.

They are part-time employees at the greenhouse, owned by their son-in-law, Robert Gandini, and have been working there for 26 years.

Their job is to transplant flower and vegetable seedlings into small pony-pack trays. They work half-days.

The money supplements their retirement income and provides them with the extra cash they need to travel in the winter, she said.

Last week they were transplanting marigolds and alyssum into pony packs so they will be ready for gardeners in May.

These plants grow quickly in the bright warmth of the greenhouse, which in April is filled with geraniums, fuchsia baskets and thousands of bedding plants.

Gandini specializes in newer varieties of zonal geraniums with deep green foliage and intensely colored flower spikes. His geraniums are a little more expensive than those at other stores, but the plants are large and well developed, he said. He also has a wide selection of tomatoes and peppers.

Most of the stock is sold directly to the public. The greenhouse has a handful of local wholesale accounts.

Gandini said he will sell 5,000 to 6,000 flats of flowers and vegetables by the time the planting season ends in June or early July. The hands of John and Dorothy Yaryan will have touched many of those starts.

“I just like this kind of work,” said John, 93, who lets his wife do the talking because he has a hearing impairment.

The Yaryans use small sticks to punch holes in the potting soil. Then they lay each seedling in the hole and cover it with potting soil.

The greenhouse planting season runs from February to early July. During the fall, the Yaryans work with their son, John, at his Green Bluff apple orchard.

In the winter, they visit friends or relatives around the country. Last winter they went to California.

“We are always on the go,” said Dorothy, 89.

Dorothy Yaryan was raised in a small Columbia Basin community. John Yaryan was raised in Spokane.

They met on a blind date when they went sledding with friends. Back then, they called it coasting.

They married a short time later.

For years, the couple ran a poultry processing business in the Latah Creek Valley, but it eventually closed.

Now, the couple have six children, 18 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren. Dorothy loves to tell of their accomplishments as nurses, teachers and business people, among other professions.

They still live in their home on North Adams Street not far from Wellesley and drive to the greenhouse every day.

“I love to work here,” Dorothy Yaryan said. “We are a working family, very much so. Everybody works.”

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