This Month in Rochester History

Happy New Year, Rochester history fans! Rolling the calendar back half a century to January 1963, we find that the big news of the day was the dedication of an addition to the Avon Township Library building. The library at the corner of West University Drive and Pine streets had been funded by a bequest of the late Eva Woodward Parker and was built in 1951; within a decade, it was already inadequate to serve the needs of the growing community.  Another bequest by the late Grace Currey provided a little over $33,000 to the library board to expand educational resources for the youth of Rochester and Avon. The funds were used to add a room to the back of the library building which was named the Currey Room in honor of Grace Currey's parents, Daniel and Mary Ellen Currey. (The Currey family is also remembered in the Golden Hills and Currey Hills subdivisions, which were also named for them).

In addition to the new library room, which was dedicated on January 20, 1963, the Currey bequest funded the acquisition of a lot adjacent to the library to the north which was converted to a badly needed off-street parking lot for the facility.