Gazebo is new focal point of Charles City memory garden park

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

An idea that began almost five years ago took a major step forward Tuesday afternoon as a gazebo was installed in a Charles City memorial garden.

The small park along the Cedar River began as an idea by Jill Connell of Charles City, who started the St. John’s Parent Support Group for families of children who have died.

She said she wanted a place of peace and solace for all grieving parents, whether they were members of the St. John’s group or not.

“Unfortunately, the last year has seen one of the biggest increases in parents who need this because there have been so many deaths in the last year,” Connell said.

Connell had started a similar group in Missouri after losing a son, Ryan, in childbirth in 1997.

Ryan’s identical twin, Regan, 19, now a student at North Iowa Area Community College, was part of a small group at the park Tuesday to watch the gazebo get unloaded and installed.

Connell said the group had wanted to get the gazebo installed soon after the death of Logan Luft stirred the community, but the company that built it, Woodtex of Nashville, Tennessee, was unable to deliver it to Iowa.

Woodtex found another company, Country Barn Construction of Belvidere, Tennessee, to deliver the gazebo, and Woodtex paid the transportation costs, Connell said.

Preston Kanagy of Country Barn Construction, who single-handedly delivered, unloaded and installed the gazebo, said this is the farthest he has gone on a delivery, adding it was more than 800 miles one way.

Kanagy said he has been delivering and installing sheds, barns, gazebos and other outdoor structures for about 14½ years, and his experience and skill showed.

Using a special trailer with a bed that extended and retracted, tilted and even moved side to side, he positioned the gazebo perfectly on the stone pad, rotated it to align the doorway with the path, then drilled anchor bolts into the stone.

“That was one of my requirements, that it be attached,” Connell said. “This area floods and we didn’t want it getting washed away.”

The park is located in an area on the northeast corner of the intersection of Gilbert and Brantingham streets, across the highway from Ace Hardware.

Connell began pushing the idea for the park in 2012. The memory garden location was suggested by Steve Lindaman of the city Park and Recreation Department. Jeff Otto of Otto’s Oasis did the design work for the park, including a stone-paved path leading to the round stone pad where the gazebo was placed. Matt DeBoest of DeBoest Concrete did the concrete work, Connell said.

Flowers in the memory garden were donated and Connell does most of the regular maintenance. The gazebo’s cost was about $5,400, she said, and funds were raised through the St. John’s Parent Support Group and community donations.