Army Couldn't Prepare Texas Florist For Church Massacre

STOCKDALE, TX — Wally Santiago witnessed street violence growing up in 1970s New York City, and would later exchange gunfire on several continents during his decades-long Army career — but none of it prepared him for the scene that would unfold Sunday near his flower shop in a quiet Texas town.

On typical Sundays at MooValley Flowers in Stockdale, Santiago, 57, pots flowers, prunes plants and makes a few sales to mourners who come to visit a neighboring cemetery. This week, he was watching a “Power Rangers” DVD in the shop because business was characteristically slow.

Then: Bang! Bang! Bang! More bangs.

He wrote it off as the gunfire he usually hears in the area, fired by hunters or target shooters.

But then the whirl of police sirens screamed past his shop. “I said what crazy man is out there, messing up people’s Sunday morning,” Santiago told Patch.

The sirens, Santiago later found out, were from police in neighboring Sutherland Springs responding to the worst mass shooting in Texas history, which left 26 people dead in a Baptist church, including an 18-month-old baby and nine members of a single family (the unborn child of one of the victims was included in the death toll). Devin Kelley had walked into Sutherland Spring’s First Baptist Church and opened fire that morning — forever changing the quiet life Santiago and his wife had become accustomed to since he settled in Stockdale and bought the flower shop.

The commotion at first reminded him of his combat tours in Grenada, Panama and Kuwait.

“It’s not like the movies,” he said of his Army experience. “There was times when we were getting shot at, a few people died in my arms. That was tragic, but I also saw that on Castle Hill Avenue,” he said, referring to his native New York City borough of the Bronx. “I had a good friend of mine, I was 17 years old, he was talking to me, and all of a sudden this guy took a sawed-off shotgun and blew his head off when I was talking to him.”

“These things are tragic,” Santiago said. “But this one is different.”

The warm and tight-knit community of his adopted home makes the church massacre sting more than anything he saw on a battlefield or in New York. The people in the town are good natured and polite, and welcomed him into their community when he bought the shop four years ago.

“What really gets to me here is that I knew these people. They come in just to chat, the kids come in to play around. People out here help each other,” he said, pausing to apologize for getting emotional. “They wave. You don’t see that a lot anymore, where people see each other, they wave at each other. They leave their doors open; I leave my shop open.”

His friends and customers were among those slain in First Baptist Church, Santiago said. “I deliver to people’s homes in Sutherland Springs. They don’t deserve this,” he said, crying. “They really don’t.”

It’s the reason he’s offering a 50 percent discount at his shop to anyone sending flowers for the victims’ funeral services. He’s received an outpouring of support from across the country, filling orders from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Florists from out of state have even offered to come and help him with the arrangements. One from northern Colorado will be at the shop on Wednesday, Santiago said.

On Tuesday morning he had bought more than $500 worth of flowers to meet the demand. His wife was in Sutherland Springs, hoping to spread the word about the discount and help the town in any way she could.

“All funeral services I’m doing half off and if they can’t pay, I’ll just take it out of my pocket,” Santiago said. “These are my people, we have to take care of them.”

It’s the least he can do, he said, to help the community he’s come to call home.

Santiago finished his Army career in 1997, and rather than return to New York, he stayed in San Antonio and ran a trucking company until he and his wife later settled in Stockdale and bought MooValley flowers from an elderly woman.

“We bought a home out here. My wife said I have to find something to do, so I bought a flower shop,” he said.

His shop sits on the side of the four-lane highway, offers delivery and gets busy during the holidays — Mother’s Day, Christmas and Valentine’s Day, and also provides arrangements for funeral services. It doesn’t have a Facebook page, website, or other social media because Santiago is not tech savvy.

After all, Santiago said, he’s not in the business for the money.

“It’s not a profitable job,” he said. “But it makes you happy inside.”

Also See: Emotional Healing In Sutherland Springs Will Take A Long Time

Photo Credit: Wally Santiago