The Route 66 town of Gardner, Ill., dedicated its new memory gazebo in its downtown business district on Saturday, reports the Joliet Herald News.
Part of the structure contained paving bricks engraved with the names of people that residents new — some living and some dead.
As the program got underway, master of ceremonies Don Phillips asked the crowd to face a home across the street belonging to Ida Schopp. Schopp was one of the key players in getting the gazebo built, she was a real go-getter, Phillips said. And while she wasn’t able to be right at the ceremony, she was watching from her window. With Phillips’ encouragement, the crowd hollered “Merry Christmas” in unison.
“Just about everyone (in town) was asked for money from Ida. Just about all of us agreed,” said Phillips. “If Barack Obama was smart, he’d hire Ida as his secretary of Treasury and there wouldn’t be a debt.”
Much of the gazebo’s construction was donated labor, also.
At the ceremony, Route 66 advocates John and Lenore Weiss hoisted the Route 66 flag; an American flag was raised as well.