Life story
Anna Kvetová, née Ružičková, was born on 12 April 1938 in Trnava, the eldest of three children of Štefan and Alžbeta Ružička. She spent her childhood in the modest post-war years — in a small house with a yard, where her mother grew vegetables and left little Anna her first flowerbed by the fence. She used to say that was where it all began: a seven-year-old girl who checked every morning before school whether her marigolds had come up.
She stayed true to flowers all her life. She trained as a gardener, and in 1958 she began working at the flower shop on Hlavná Street, where she spent thirty-five years. Half of Trnava knew her — brides whose wedding bouquets she tied, and those she helped say goodbye with flowers. She used to say that flowers speak when words are not enough, and she lived by it: to every bouquet she added a quiet smile and a kind word.
In June 1961 she married Jozef Kvet, and together they shared fifty-six years in a house with a garden on Kvetná Street. They raised a daughter, Mária, and a son, Peter, and lived to see five grandchildren. The garden behind the house was her kingdom: peonies by the fence that bloomed every May, roses cut at dawn while the dew still held on them, lilac by the gate, and lavender she dried in bunches in the attic. No one ever left empty-handed — a cutting over the fence, a handful of seeds, a recipe.
Sundays at the Kvets’ smelled of cinnamon bundt cake made to her mother’s recipe, and the whole house knew that while the batter was in the oven, no one was to stomp about. She told her grandchildren about flowers as if they were people — which one is shy, which one proud, and which one simply needs time. The family still repeats her wisdom: “What you plant with love grows twice as well.” And when someone was in a hurry, she would smile and add: “Flowers never rush, and yet they get everything done in time.”
She passed away quietly on 20 January 2024, surrounded by her family. Her peonies by the fence still bloom, and the whole street is full of flowers grown from her cuttings. The light she gave never goes out.
Constellation of Life
Important milestones that shaped their journey.
The eldest of three children of Štefan and Alžbeta Ružička.
Her first trade and her first love — flowers.
She stayed true to it for thirty-five years.
Together they shared 56 years in the house on Kvetná Street.
After 35 years among flowers — though she never stopped tying bouquets for the whole street.
Four more grandchildren followed in time.
After 56 years together.
She passed away surrounded by her family.