Date: Fri 02-Apr-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: JAN

Quick Words:

library-rose-garden

Full Text:

Volunteers Sought For Rose Garden Restoration

(with photo)

BY JAN HOWARD

Rosarians, gardeners, and rose garden enthusiasts are needed to help bring a

memorial rose garden back to its original beauty.

Resident Jack Corcoran and members of the Garden Club of Newtown are

undertaking a rose garden restoration project at the Cyrenius H. Booth

Library.

The garden is located on the south side of the library next to a stairway and

walkway. It is divided from the walkway by a hedge, which the committee

members would like to remove and replace with some type of attractive fencing.

There are four or five rose bushes remaining in the garden, some more healthy

than others. Mr Corcoran and Sue Toll, a member of the Garden Club's Civic

Committee, feel some of the plants will need to be replaced. There is also

enough room for additional rose bushes.

To restore the rose garden, the committee is seeking help from rose experts

for planning, guidance and advice, and gardeners and lovers of roses for

weeding, pruning, spraying, cutting, arranging and caring for the garden.

Residents interested in helping with the rose garden restoration should call

Mr Corcoran at 426-5755.

"This is a potential gem," Mr Corcoran said. "It is situated in such a way

that it has the potential of being really great.

"It's small enough to be manageable," he said.

The committee is also seeking some financial support from residents to help in

the restoration of the garden and for maintenance materials. To make a

donation, call Mr Corcoran.

The Sarah Mitchell Memorial Rose Garden is a small 12 foot by 12 foot area

dedicated as a memorial to eight former residents, whose names are listed on a

plaque on the wall behind it.

One of the committee's goals is to make the print on the plaque uniform.

Currently, two types of print name those memorialized in the rose garden.

The roses are dedicated to Sarah Mitchell, who worked at the library for 40

years and stepped down as head librarian in December of 1971, and seven other

former residents, Starr Conger Smith, Dorothy B. Jervis, Jacqueline Starr

Smith, Andrei Hudiakoff, Jack Friel, Flora Lavery, and Florence Kearns.

Ms Mitchell, who died in 1979, was connected with the present library even

before it was built. The year before, she worked at the library in the town

hall, helping prepare books for the move to the new building.

She decided she enjoyed the work and continued as an assistant librarian when

it opened in 1932. During World War II, she became adept at keeping the

library's fireplaces blazing, so the furnace could be kept as low as possible

because of fuel shortages.

In September of 1943, she was named acting librarian when Mrs Alice Davidson,

the librarian, was granted a year's leave of absence to take a wartime

appointment in Washington, DC.

During Ms Mitchell's years at the library, two of the additions she saw

completed included what was then the genealogy room and the historic artifact

rooms on the second floor.