Something magical happens each year at Mrs. Lee’s Daffodil Garden.

Beginning around mid-February, millions of daffodils spring up on several acres of land in Gladewater, attracting visitors as they travel along a 4-mile trail around two lakes, between wooded valleys and around a replica pioneer log cabin.

Amy Mohon works the gate at the daffodil garden, and her husband, Monty, handles the mowing and maintenance of the property.

“My father-in-law works at the cabin, and my husband goes around and checks on everybody as they go through,” Mohon said.

Visitors to the garden sign in as they enter the property.

“We ask all of our guests to sign in, and then I try to keep a daily total of how many cars come through,” Mohon said.

In the first few days after opening, she said 151 cars drove through the garden.

“We had quite a few out-of-town people, including one guest from Kentucky, and then we had a couple from Iowa and … Washington and Illinois, in addition to the locals,” she said.

The garden was started in the 1950s by Helen Lee after the death of her husband, T.W. Lee.

“All of this got started over a miscommunication,” Mohon said. “Mrs. Lee went to order one box of daffodil bulbs from the nursery in Marshall, Texas, and somehow things got mixed up or lost in translation, and she ended up with one railcar box of daffodil bulbs.”

Mohon said Lee had her workers help her plant the bulbs after they were delivered to the property.

“I’ve been told that 40 to 50 of her workers came out here and helped her plant all of the daffodils,” she said. “And we were told by close family friends that during bloom season, Mrs. Lee would buy a bunch of vases and have her workers come out and collect the daffodils to fill the vases and they would take the vases to the patients in the hospital.”

Helen Lee died in 1984, and the garden, at her request, was opened to the public afterward.

Lee’s great-nephew, Van Vernon, president of the Helen Foundation, said everything was spelled out in Lee’s will concerning the property. It was her request that the garden be open to the public at no cost when the daffodils are in bloom.

“The farm is where she spent a lot of her time (after Uncle Taylor passed). She really got it going in the ‘60s and planted the daffodils,” Vernon said.

A cabin situated on the property is a replica of the house where Lee was born.

“She told me years ago it’s what she grew up in, and she has memories of that as a little girl,” Vernon said. “There were seven (siblings) … my grandfather being one. She just wanted something out there that reminded her of that. It was all built from material there on the farm.”

Vernon said the lake in front of the property is called Lake Josephine, named after Lee’s mother.

“I can remember Grandma Vernon vaguely,” he said. “I was in her presence two or three times when my family would go to East Texas and we would always go visit Grandma Vernon.”

Another lake on the property is named after Lee.

“The big lake as you come in, I took it upon myself to name that Lake Helen,” Vernon said. “We all called her Aunt ‘Heelen,’ not Helen. It’s just easier to tell people Helen Lee instead of Heelen because that was a familiar term for all of us.”

According to Vernon, the blooms cover about 60 to 100 acres of the property.

“All total with the place where the house and barns are, there are about 960 acres,” Vernon said. “It’s a pretty good size.”

Vernon said his his great-uncle, T.W. Lee, who owned the T.W. Lee Building in Gladewater, bought the farm for the gravel so he could gravel the runways at the Gladewater airport.

“He was quite an entrepreneur, besides being an oil man. He passed away in 1952, and when he died, Aunt Helen decided she wanted to do something with the place,” he said. “Uncle Taylor had a lot of dirt-moving equipment, and the gentleman that was my uncle’s mechanic stayed on and worked for her.”

Vernon said the worker helped dig the lakes, build the dams, clear some of the land and other work as needed.

“She used a nursery man from Marshall, and she grew roses and azaleas,” he said. “The farm was her baby, and she and Mamie Scott, her maid and best friend, could go anywhere on that place they wanted to in her old Chevrolet Station Wagon — that was the work car.”

Vernon said his aunt was quite a lady.

“She put lots of nieces and nephews and some friends through college — my dad being one of them,” he said. “He didn’t get to finish … and ended up going into the Navy. But many of the others — dad’s brothers and sisters — went.”

Vernon said the property benefits the whole community.

“We like for the Boy Scouts to come out and camp out. If they have projects we encourage them to do that, and the Civil Air Patrol has held exercises out there,” he said. “And it’s also a wildlife preserve. We have a gentleman just outside Gladewater who has put little bluebird houses along the way, and he calls it his Bluebird Trail.”

Hunting also is allowed on the property, Vernon said.

“We’ve got some people who we encourage, when there’s nobody on the place, especially not during flower season, to come out and hunt,” he said. “We’ve got deer … you name it, we’ve got it.”

The Helen Lee Foundation is a nonprofit organization, and although admission is free, Vernon said donations are accepted.

“If people feel like they should or could, we do accept donations. It really helps out,” he said.

Vernon said from about 1986-87, the garden has been open every year he can recall. The replica cabin also is open.

“If we have enough volunteers to work the grounds, we generally will put somebody inside the cabin on the weekends and just let people walk through,” he said.

One of Vernon’s favorite stories to tell about his aunt and the property centers around catfish.

“She called me one day and said, ‘Come on down — I need some help unloading some catfish food.’ I followed them down to the dock on the west side, and she had two big 50-pound sacks of Purina Catfish Chow,” he said. “I didn’t even know they made that. I put it in the storage bin for her, and she reached in and got a big old scoop of one of the sacks we had opened.”

Vernon said his aunt asked him to take the food halfway down the dock and throw it into the water.

“So, I walked down the dock and threw it in the water, and about that time she tapped on the side of the dock with an ore she had,” he said. “In about a minute and a half, I have never seen water churned and torn up like that. Those were some of the biggest catfish I had ever seen in my life.”

Vernon said his aunt and her friend Mamie just stood on the bank laughing at him.

“I didn’t know whether to jump in and try to catch one or run or what,” he said. “It is something that has always stuck with me.”

Mohon said the property is a peaceful and calm place.

“When I pull through that gate in the morning, a sense of peace comes over me,” she said. “To be surrounded by all of God’s work and for Mrs. Lee to have opened it up to share it with us … she wanted to share all of God’s beauty with the public.”

What: Mrs. Lee’s Daffodil Garden

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily through mid-March, pending weather

Where: 21600 CR 3103, Gladewater

Admission: Free

Information: (903) 845-5780 or find The New Mrs. Lee’s Daffodil Garden on Facebook