DLN: Costello visits cherry tree

As published in the Daily Local News

Michael Rellahan 

West Chester >> On Friday about noon, on what may have been the first truly warm day of spring, a United States congressman visited a British native at the boyhood home of an American hero to talk about a Japanese cherry tree.

Smiles were abundant.

U.S. Rep Ryan Costello, R-6th, of West Chester paid the visit to the current home of Peter Croydon and his wife, Zena Croydon, in the 200 block of West Miner Street in West Chester. Costello came at the invitation of the Daily Local News to see the home of one of his 6th District predecessors, Thomas Stalker Butler, and one of Chester County’s most historically famous native sons, the late U.S. Marine Corps Major Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler.

And mostly to see the first day of blooms of the Yoshiko cherry tree in the front yard of the Croydon’s home.

Costello’s visit came one day after he stopped by the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., after completing the weekly voting session of the House of Representatives. There, he took in the sights of the annual Cherry Blossom Festival — commemorating the gift of dozens of cherry trees from the people of Japan to the people of the United States, in 1912.

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