Tree saplings are often seen as a symbol of new beginnings, hope and growth.
For Anne Frank, the chestnut tree that she wrote about in her diary while in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands represented freedom and the outside world. While the original tree fell due to a storm in 2010, Bob Hawkins and his team from the Vallonia Nursery in Indiana propagated its branches into new saplings that were distributed around the world in her memory, according to the Anne Frank Center.
In November, students and staff at Spokane’s Peperzak Middle School celebrated the school’s namesake, Carla Olman Peperzak, on her 101st birthday by surprising her with news of the incoming sapling. Now, it rests its roots in a corner of the school’s Moran Prairie campus…