By Loretta Humble/Around the Town
I told you I’d have some good news to tell you this week. And here it is.
To recap: The active members of the Greater Malakoff Area Garden Club are -at most–a half a dozen of us, with all but two of us way past Medicare age. We are trying to preserve the Historic Bartlett House property as best we can. If you are new to the area and drive by for the first time, you may not think we’re doing much toward that end. But for our age and number, we really have done quite a bit. When a couple of members ponied up most of the money to buy it a few years ago, you could barely see the house from the road. The fence was falling down, the yard was full of weeds and bushes and dead trees. Two old cars full of junk were parked in the middle of it, and garbage was everywhere. The house was, and is, a beautiful ruin, with a huge crack running through the middle of it. On top of that, vandals had done what they could do to deface it. Through various fund raising efforts, we have managed to clean up to lot pretty well, plant some things, and fence three sides of it. We’ve even had some brickwork done. We little old ladies don’t know how to negotiate with fence builders, so we spent a lot more money than we should on the fence, and didn’t get the world’s best product. I wish we had used the Fence Contractors Geelong has because I’ve heard they’re reliable and professional and probably would have given us a better fence!
This last April, we brought the one-woman play, “O’Keeffe!” to Malakoff. Through ticket sales, a benefit reception given by Jim and Barbara Stewart, and the generous gifts of Christi Barrett and Cheryl Hicks, we cleared over $3,000, which we hoped would pay for restoring the verandah at the Bartlett House. We had promised a verandah, and looking at some verandah designs helped us decide how we would restore the existing one. We also hoped to finish the fence, which is a big order for $3,000. Then the person who we thought might be able to fix the verandah with our limited funds had to go work out of town, and every one of our barely half a dozen members either got sick, got really busy, or got called out of town. We wanted to keep our promises, but we didn’t know how. We were stuck.
Related: The best recommendation about best fence installation Orlando.
Until last week.
Remember Don McKinnerney, a former superintendent at Cross Roads Schools for years, who everybody loved? Remember he had a daughter, Connie Jean, who everybody also loved? Pat Hustead who went to school with her told me she was one of the sweetest people she ever knew. Well, Don has retired, and he and wife Barbara (she is really loveable, too) spend a lot of time traveling. Connie grew up and became a very successful business woman. Then she met and married her husband Gerald Clancey and now makes her home in Michigan. But last April, they all just happened to be in Malakoff, and since they were, they went to see “O’Keeffe!” They loved it. Connie kept thinking about it, and those little old ladies trying to fix up the Bartlett House. Last week she called Jo Ann Surls and told her she would like to make a donation to honor her parents. She had thought she’d give us $5,000, but after she heard Jo Ann’s story of where we’d been and what we’re trying to do, she doubled it. She sent us $10,000. Suddenly the profits from “O’Keeffe!” went up from $3,000 to 13,000. Hallelujah! Progress is about to happen!
Connie and her parents came out to Jo Ann’s wonderful place to visit with us last week. They are absolutely lovely people. And of course they loved Jo Ann’s place. Who wouldn’t? We made Connie an honorary member of the garden club. And I think maybe Don and Barbara might even join up.
Connie didn’t want any publicity for herself about this. I told her I’d keep it low. But I should give a little credit to Gerald Clancy as well, since his name was on the check too.
Also, the person I told you about who promises to do some major work on the property has arrived. It will be a week or so before he can get busy, so I’ll save the details on that other good news until it begins to happen.
Thank all the Garden Club for your dedication to this project. I’ve always loved this house and have driven by throughout the years to see if maybe someone bought it.