Hiller's grandmom survived the Titanic sinking

Horticulturist opens shop on Bethlehem Pike

by LEN LEAR

No matter what Chestnut Hill resident Mark Petteruti, 46, achieves in life -- and the long-time successful horticultural consultant numbers many owners of spectacular Chestnut Hill area mansions among his clients -- he will always be associated with an epic tragedy that took place on April 12, 1912, 46 years before he was even born.

On that date the storied RMS Titanic, the most elegant and luxurious passenger ship ever built up to that time, sank in the North Atlantic, about 350 miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, killing 1,522 passengers.

Among the 705 passengers who were rescued was Bertha Elizabeth Noon (nee Mulvihill), 20, one of 10 children from a family in Athlone, Ireland, who had been traveling on the maiden voyage of the Titanic to Providence, Rhode Island. There she had planned to marry Henry Noon, a factory worker she had met after immigrating to Providence in 1910. Bertha had been a waitress at a resort hotel in Newport, Rhode Island, and she had saved up her tips to pay for one last trip to visit her family in Ireland. After visiting her family for the last time ever, she set sail on the Titanic.

As almost everyone now knows, thanks in part to Titanic, the all-time top-grossing movie with well over $1 billion in ticket receipts, the massive "unsinkable" ship sank after colliding with a giant iceberg. Bertha, who saw many fellow passengers disappear in the icy waters, leaped onto a lifeboat, later describing the jump as "the equivalent of jumping off the roof of a three-story building."

The jump injured several ribs, and the injuries got even worse when other passengers leaping from the boat fell on top of her. The lifeboat was supposed to have a capacity of 25, but there were eventually 75 people in it. Bertha had no warm clothing, and she was wet, frigid, exhausted, hungry and in great pain. Later she began throwing up. The following day she and the others were picked up by the Carpathia, a ship which had been traveling from the U.S. to Europe.

In August of 1912 Bertha did, in fact, marry Harry Noon in St. Patrick's Church in Providence. The marriage produced five children, one of whom was Frances Noon, who married a man named Joseph C. Petteruti in 1941. One of their four children was Mark Petteruti, who grew up in Rhode Island but came to Chestnut Hill in 1982 to accept an internship from Robertson's Florists after earning a degree in ornamental horticulture and landscape design from the University of Rhode Island. He later worked at Robertson's Conservatory for 10 years.

Mark is passionate about plants and flowers, but he just as passionate about the legacy of his grandmother, who died in 1959 at the age of 67 when Mark was just one year old. "After all," explained Mark, "if grandmom had not survived the Titanic, my whole family would not be on this earth today. I was told she had nightmares for the rest of her life and did not like to talk about the Titanic because it brought back too many sad memories. After all, she saw so many people disappearing and drowning all around her."

Mark has a library of more than 100 books about the sinking of the Titanic. He and his family also have three items his grandmom had with her on the Titanic -- a cross, pocket watch and bracelet, all gold -- which are kept in a safety deposit box in Connecticut.

"Bertha became a famous person in Providence," said Mark. "She was written up in the local papers almost every year on the anniversary of the sinking. She was so afraid of the water that she would never go back to Ireland to visit her family. She wouldn't even go swimming. She was a wonderful woman, and I have worked very hard to keep the memory of her and the other survivors alive."

But Mark is making news of his own these days. Last Wednesday he opened Botanical Expressions at 1510 Bethlehem Pike in Flourtown. It's in a 150-year-old building that most recently housed an embroidery shop. For 10 years Petteruti has been doing design, installation and maintenance of gardens, floral arrangements and plants (including orchids) at homes in Chestnut Hill, Blue Bell, Center City and the Main Line. Some clients pay for large new floral arrangements in every room of their houses every week.

Petteruti also has done Christmas decorations, window boxes and/or storefronts in Chestnut Hill such as Barbara Russell, Intermission, Hahn Gallery, McNally's and Solaris Grill. He also maintains many clients' valuable outdoor plants, topiaries, etc., during cold-weather months in a greenhouse on Seminole Avenue and has won several ribbons for his work at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

For the past five years Mark was looking for a location for a retail store as well. He and Bob Martin, who is both his life partner and business partner, had a location picked out in Chestnut Hill, but it proved to be too expensive. While attending a party last summer, however, they were introduced by Anne Marie Fles, co-owner of the Sudsy Dog Grooming Salon in Flourtown, to John McGettigan, a Chestnut Hill electrician who had just purchased the building at 1510 Bethlehem Pike. Before long they had a rental arrangement worked out. An extensive three-month renovation was then carried out which included the use of more than 70 gallons of paint.

The store, Botanical Expressions, which opened December 1, has eight full-time employees. It sells gorgeous flowers and plants and every imaginable item related to them such as hand-thrown clay pots, dried arrangements in antique pots, wreaths, garlands, antique garden ornaments, watering cans, sprinklers, jardinieres, etc.; clay objects with leaves burned into them, botanical illustrations, even floral paintings by local artists such as Anne Boysen and Sara Steele.

For more information about Botanical Expressions, which is currently open Wednesdays through Saturdays, 9:30 to 4:30, call 215-836-4959 or visit www.marksplants.com or www.botanical-expressions.com

(Those interested in learning more about the Titanic might want to check out the exhibit currently at the Franklin Institute which contains many artifacts from the ship itself. For tickets or information about the exhibit, call 215-448-1200 or visit www.fi.edu)