Miss Lenora, Who Keeps Up The Monument

I’ve got great neighbors. One of the first people I met when I moved to my neighborhood in East Atlanta was Ms. Lenora. I think I first bumped in to her on my morning dog walks. She fills me in on the latest news about her grandkids, goings-on in the neighborhood, and her gardening. She has lived here for decades, and is an anchor of the community. Whenever I pass by her place I’m always compelled to wave, and often I’ll stop and we’ll chat for a while. She’s part of what makes the area really feel like home.

For her own reasons that she’d be glad to tell you about(more in the video below), Ms. Lenora takes care of a monument to General McPherson on our street. Year-round, she does what needs to be done out of her own pocket and with her own sweat — she plants new flowers, prunes what needs to be pruned, pulls the weeds, and does whatever needs doing to keep the monument looking beautiful. She does a fantastic job, and it always makes me happy to stop and pull over and hear from her about the latest additions to the flower beds. If you’ve perused my Flickr photos, you’ve seen quite a few pictures of the monument:

McPherson and Monument

Death of McPherson - McPherson Monument

Laying cigars for General Macpherson

A couple of nights ago I was coming back from dinner and noticed a Channel 46 news truck set up down the street to do a live report. Of course, when you see the local news your first instinct is that something bad must have happened, so I pulled over and asked the reporter what was going on. She explained that she had put together a story about my friend Ms. Lenora and her volunteer care of the monument. Another friend captured the report and shared it:

It also turns out that I know the reporter in another context; she’s a participant in our community message board, EAV Buzz. As soon as she filed the story, she hit the board to tell us about it. Although Ms. Lenora herself doesn’t have an internet connection, I like to fill her in on some of the discussions from time to time, and I’m making her a copy of the above news report, so she can watch it whenever she wants. We’re all very grateful for the hard work and care she puts in.

As an aside, the annual festival commemorating the Battle Of Atlanta is coming up. If you’d like to visit the monument and learn more about what all happened in this area during the Civil War, that’s a great time to stop by the neighborhood. More info at batlevent.org.

1 comment

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *