It was a quaint affair Tuesday, as a group of Marilyn Sandstrom’s friends gathered on the sidewalk of East Second Avenue between 11th and 12th streets.
Sandstrom died in 2021 at the age of 84, but it took her community a few years to organize a fitting memorial. About 25 friends of hers gathered on the sunny spring day under the shade of a blooming cherry tree to unveil that monument: a free library bearing the credo “Read. Learn. Vote.”
“I’m overwhelmed by the love that’s here,” Sandstrom’s daughter, Ann Wiley, said. “I’m really grateful to all of you for doing this for my mother and for my children’s grandmother.”
In life, Sandstrom was an active member of the American Association of University Women and the League of Women Voters of La Plata County. She also served as an election judge for several decades.
“She liked to be where the action was,” said La Plata County Clerk and Recorder Tiffany Lee, who helped organize the project.
Friends remembered Sandstrom as a voracious consumer of literature and a dedicated bastion of democracy. Connie Jacobs recalled that Sandstrom would bring voter registration cards to nursing homes to ensure the residents were able to vote.
“She just made Durango a better place,” Jacobs said.
A group of Sandstrom’s friends, with the assistance of their extended community, slowly built and painted the library. It took several tries before the committee found a spot for it. Fittingly, they set it, alongside a small bench, in front of a set of apartment buildings, one of which Sandstrom had lived in.
Marcy Jung, who spearheaded the project, recalled the overjoyed reaction of the property manager when she broached the subject.
“We’d love to do something, we love Marilyn,” Jung was told.
Books were an enormous part of Sandstrom’s life, another friend said. And so it was appropriate that the first books to stock the library belonged to Sandstrom herself.
“Marilyn is already missed by all of us, however, her legacy will continue forever,” Lee said in an email.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
