William Henry Krekler (February 18, 1900 West Elkton OH - February 7, 2002 Tucson, AZ) registered over 1000 flowers of his creation, and that was only a small fraction of what he actually created. He only spent the registration fee on the flowers he considered exceptional. The rest he gave away.
"Bill" Krekler was a landscape architect for Olmstead Brothers in Boston, Mass. He owned and operated the Peacock Nursery in Akron, OH from 1928 to 1955, subsequently operated the Krekler Peony Farm in Somerville, OH. He served for many years on the board of directors of the American Peony Society and the American Hemerocallis Society.
William H. Krekler obituaryFrom "The Peonies", by Myron Bigger, 1962, p.38:] "William H. Krekler grew up on his father's farms in Ohio and Indiana. He studied landscape architecture at the University of Illinois. He worked in a number of states for the famous firm of Olmsted Brothers. He has managed the Peacock Nursery of Akron, Ohio, since 1928, and also manages farms in West Elkton, Ohio. He was instrumental in starting a peony nursery in England. He is now growing about 1300 kinds of peonies and has three acres of seedlings. He has named many splendid peonies, among them Corinne Wersan, Russell Emrick, and Gertrude Cox. He bought out the stock of such breeders as Winslow, Claybaugh, and H. L. Smith, and parts of many other collections, and has run special tests on varieties of a number of other breeders."
