The dogwood tree (right) that Updike’s parents planted on his first birthday is still alive and well, thanks to excellent care from Pete Giangiulo, who is trying to coax an “offspring” from the tree, via air layering. Planted in April 1933, that makes our dogwood 92 years old. If you google how long dogwoods typically live, you get an age range of 20-80 years. Maybe this one is as magical as Updike thought! Updike famously wrote about the tree in “The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood”:

“When I was born, my parents and my mother’s parents planted a dogwood tree in the side yard of the large white house in which we lived throughout my boyhood. This tree . . . was, in a sense, me.” According to Updike’s Shillington contact, Dave Silcox, John’s mother later corrected him, telling him it was planted on the one-year anniversary of his birth.

In “The Dogwood Tree,” Updike continued with a line that has more resonance today than when he wrote it:  “My dogwood tree still stands in the side yard, taller than ever . . . .”