A tree grew in the village
New York City. Carol Schultz grew a Charlie Brown tree to a magnificent Norway Spruce destined for the world's stage this holiday season.
| 05 Dec 2019 | 10:31
Carol Schultz planted a Norway Spruce in her front yard in the Village of Florida in 1959. The tree grew to 77 feet tall and 46-feet wide and was selected as the 2019 Rockfeller Center Christmas Tree. (
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The tree that grew in Carol Schultz's front yard in Orange County now rises above Rockefeller Center, adorned with more than 50,000 multi-colored LEDS on approximately five miles of wire. (
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For the 1959 Christmas season, Carol Schultz chose something different for her home in the Village of Florida: a sapling of a Norway Spruce, purchased in a nearby town.
The tree, a bit of a Charlie Brown tree then, sat on her coffee table throughout the season and into spring.
Then she planted it in her front yard and raised it where it would be enjoyed by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A half century after that first Christmas, in 2010, with the tree now towering over the entire block, Schultz and her companion Richard O'Donnell went on Rockefeller Center's website and submitted the tree for consideration to become the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.
In 2019, Rockefeller Center gardener Erik Pauze knocked on her door, and she heard the good news.
"I just knew that one day, it would be the one," Schultz said in the press release from the publicists for the Rockefeller Center 2019 Tree Lighting.
"This is a great region for Norway Spruce trees, and the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has come from this area a few times in recent years," remarked Pauze. "As I was scouting last spring, I made a note to come back to see how Carol 's tree was looking, and this year it's just right."
Schultz, a mother of four, grandmother of eight, and great-grandmother of four, fondly remembers decorating the tree with Christmas lights each year and even egg decorations for Easter.
Not only has the family vivid memories of the tree, but the entire village of Florida knows it as the magnificent beauty that was destined for greatness.