Grandma's Lilac

About 15 years ago, I took a cutting from a lilac bush in Berwick, North Dakota. My mother grew up in the small town that basically doesn't exist anymore. Over the years, on visits to ND, we would drive by on US Highway 2, between Towner and Rugby, sometimes stopping by to see the old yard. The house was no longer there (someone moved it to Rugby years ago), but part of the foundation remained, as well as two lilac bushes that flanked the concrete steps. On a visit in 2005, we drove to the place just as a farmer was plowing it up. The foundation was gone, but the bushes were still there, so I took a cutting and some of the very sandy soil, and kept it damp in a plastic grocery bag all the way home. Now we have a very vigorous bush on the side yard. 
If you take AMTRAK's Empire Builder from Portland to Chicago, you go right through Berwick, but would probably not know it.