Roots Run Deep in Upper Arlington Home

      

              Libby's "Naked Ladies" bloom and brighten the Berwyn Road garden year after year.

By Debra Dendahl Hadley

My grandparents, Libby and Jim Flanigan, grew up in Newark, Ohio and moved to Upper Arlington early in their marriage. They built one of the first homes on Berwyn Road where they raised my mother and my uncle. My mother moved to Santa Fe, NM early in her marriage, which is where I spent the majority of my childhood. As a result, we didn’t get to see my grandparents more than once or twice a year.

When I was 15, I had the opportunity to get to know my grandparents very well when two of my sisters and I came for a summer visit and ended up staying for the entire school year. I attended UAHS as a sophomore, and my two sisters attended St. Agatha. It was fun for us to “try on” different schools for a year, making new friends, trying new activities and getting to know the wonderful community we have here in UA.  I’ll never forget the day my biology lab partners found out I was from New Mexico - they all commented on how well I spoke English. (Yes, sometimes UA really is a “bubble”.)

That year with my grandparents was unforgettable, and I grew extremely close to my grandmother. Libby kept us busy with activities and it was a very enriching experience. One funny memory I have is when we drove through neighborhoods in UA, she would point out other houses she particularly liked. Nearly always, their exteriors were covered in brick. Her home had brick trim on the front of the house, but was primarily wood siding. She hated that siding because every 8 years or so she’d have to hire someone to repaint it. She had pushed to have the exterior of their home be all brick at the time it was built, but it would have cost my grandfather an extra $300, and he refused!. A big mistake on his part as she always reminded him of his short-sightedness when the painters submitted their invoices for payment.

Little did I know that when I finished college and graduate school, I would return to Columbus to start my career. My happiest and saddest day came about 5 years later when Libby was too ill from breast cancer to attend my wedding. She died less than a month later. My husband, Fred, and I lived in a new home in Gahanna after we were married. Several years later, following the death of my grandfather, my mother asked if we wouldn’t want to purchase my grandparents’ UA home, which we initially declined. Some months later, I had a change of heart, much to Fred’s chagrin (he was an “East-sider”). We hired an architect and got busy redesigning parts of the home to better suit our lifestyle. What a great decision. We have so enjoyed raising our two children in the home my grandparents built. While we’ve made many changes to the home and landscaping, much remains the same – including the phone number! And every August I smile when I see that despite all of the changes, the “Naked Ladies” (official name:Resurrection Lily) planted by Libby so many years ago grace us with their return.