Great Tree result of mother’s nurture

Ranger —- Judy Coggins remembers the day 38 years ago when her mother planted four white pine seedlings around her home off U.S. 411.

On Nov. 13, Coggins watched as one of the three remaining trees was cut and hauled to Atlanta to become this year’s Macy’s Great Tree.

“It’s a big tree,” Coggins said of the white pine. Her husband, Morgan, estimated its height at 60 feet.

Coggins said her parents, Rachel and Spurgeon Putnam, were both gardeners.

“My mother had two green thumbs,” she said. “I inherited about half of one.”

The Putnams lived on the Gordon County property for many years, Coggins said. “That’s where we all were raised. When Mother and Daddy got older, Daddy sold all but 4 acres. They moved to Florida but moved back not too long after that.”

When the Putnams came back to Ranger in 1970, they put a trailer on the remaining 4 acres, and Coggins’ mother planted the four seedlings —- two in front and two in back.

“Mother went up into the mountains somewhere in Gilmer County and dug them up, brought them back and planted them,” Coggins said. “She babied those seedlings, and they grew into beautiful trees. Mother loved those trees —- so did Daddy.”

Her father died in 1995, and her mother died in 2005. “Now that they are gone, there’s not much left out here but the trailer and the trees,” Coggins said.

Coggins said a forester who looks for trees for Macy’s noticed Rachel Putnam’s white pines several years ago, when all four were still standing.

“He first called me about four or five years ago to see if I’d be interested in letting them have one for Macy’s Great Tree,” she said. “I told him at first that I wasn’t sure but then called back and said yes. One of the reasons I changed my mind is because I know how happy Mother would have been.”

Gene Weeks, vice president of Entertainment Design Group, said Macy’s has been watching Rachel Putnam’s trees for a number of years.

“It’s always a chore to find a nice symmetrical tree,” Weeks said. “When a tree grows in the wild, it’s often clustered with other trees, and there is usually a bad side. When it grows out in the open like this one, you get a nice symmetrical tree.”

On Thursday, the tree was cut down, loaded onto a truck and hauled to Atlanta.

“This is pretty exciting,” said Cindy Brown, Ranger’s city clerk, who was watching the activity along with a contingent of Ranger residents.

For the next two weeks, a team of eight workers will decorate the tree, which will be officially lighted for the Christmas season on Thanksgiving night at the Macy’s at Lenox Square, said Weeks, whose company has produced the annual tree-lighting show for the past 16 years. This year’s ceremony will be dedicated to Rachel Putnam, he said.

A Macy’s spokesman said more than 2.2 million people will see the Great Tree during the Christmas season.

“I’m glad Macy’s is going to get it, but I’m still a little sad,” said Coggins, who plans to watch the lighting of the tree. “This would have thrilled Mother and Daddy —- certainly her. If she was here, she’d want to follow it down to Atlanta.”

THE GREAT TREE

The 38-year-old white pine is 60 feet tall and weighs about 14,000 pounds. It was cut from the old Putnam place off U.S. 411 in Ranger and hauled to the Lenox Square Macy’s.

A crew of eight people will work two weeks to decorate the tree with 125 red Macy’s stars, 125 white snowflakes, 1,200 multicolored metallic basketball-size ornaments; 50 strobe lights, 400 internally lit ornaments, 4,000 11-watt bulbs. The tree will be topped with a color-changing Macy’s star.

The tree drinks a mixture of 200 aspirins dissolved in 300 gallons of water to maintain its freshness.

The tree’s stand and supports are designed to weather hurricane-force storms.

This year’s Great Tree will be lighted on Thanksgiving night and will be viewed by more than 2.2 million people.