In 1923, a little girl named Evelyn Nadolny attended a two-room schoolhouse that did not have a flagpole. Evelyn told her father they needed one, as it seems that she always got stuck with holding up the flag at outdoor ceremonies. Joe Nadolny approached the Alex Brown Company, which owned wooded property in the area, and a healthy tall tree was chosen to be shaped into a flagpole, much to little Evelyn's relief. As time went on with increasing development in the area, the small schoolhouse was replaced with a much larger one in a different area. Of course, the flagpole was brought along. For many years, the flag waved proudly, being raised and lowered by the school custodian each day. Unfortunately, due to a discovery of asbestos, the school was taken down and a new larger school was built, leaving the flagpole behind.
Empty now - no longer did Old Glory wave proudly - the pole nothing more than an old tree trunk. But when a thunderstorm and lightning strike caused a nearby tree to crash into the pole and knock it down, did the neighborhood cut it up for firewood? No, indeed! Little Evelyn's flagpole was once again restored and rededicated, to the YMCA Head Start Center on one side and a medic station on the other.
I passed by that flagpole every morning on my way to work. It was so sad to see it without a flag, but extremely hard to recruit someone to raise and lower it every day. What it needed were lights that, according to protocol, could allow the flag to fly continuously. I applied for a Community Conservation grant and was awarded $10,000 to create a brick garden surrounding the pole. Two lamps were enclosed, thereby illuminating the flag 24/7. Every spring, the garden is planted with annual flowers that bloom all summer long, always in colors of red, white and blue to complement our flag.
One day when I thought I was alone, weeding the garden and listening to the snap of the flag in the breeze, a voice made me turn to see a young man just standing there smiling at me. I said “hi”, and he surprised me: “I just came to thank you, I'm Evelyn Nadolny's grandson. She would have been so happy that her flagpole has been so honored.” I replied that it was the flag that was honored, thanks to Evelyn's gift to us.
In two more years, we will celebrate a centennial. One hundred years for a wooden flagpole that has been through a war of its own; restored many times and loved by many.