Family celebrates grandparents’ 90th birthdays with installation of Little Free Library at Downers Grove park

A grandparents’ love of reading led their family to install a Little Free Library at Downers Grove’s Patriots Park near Barth Pond as part of the couple’s 90th birthday celebration.

Downer Grove’s Jacque Morgan said her entire family, which included children, grandchildren and a great granddaughter, decided to honor their grandparents, Bruce and Reta Nagle, on their 90th birthdays, with the Little Free Library.

“They are lifelong learners, always loved reading and had this incredible passion for education and curiosity,” Morgan said of her grandparents, whose birthdays are a month apart in December and January.

While brainstorming birthday gift ideas for the couple, the family decided: “Why not give a multigenerational legacy gift that our community can really enjoy,” Morgan said.

“This gift is a celebration of curiosity of learning and the joy of sharing stories,” she said.

Reta Nagle told her family that after her dad died in 1956, her mom took courses in library science and worked for a time at a library.

“Part of my love of books came from her. No surprise, her favorite was the Bible,” Reta Nagle said. “After moving to where she could get more care, I regularly sent her books and later discovered she kept a reading journal with the author, title and summary of each book.”

Morgan, who lives a couple of blocks from Patriots Park, 501 55th Place, said the location was chosen because “the park encompasses what our extended family experienced growing up with our grandparents.”

The tranquil setting near Barth Pond stirred memories of her grandparents’ time on a Wisconsin lake, Morgan said.

Although, the Downers Grove Park District does offer tree and bench memorials, Morgan did not recall any Little Free Libraries on park district property.

Undeterred, she reached out to the park district and “they were wholeheartedly agreeable to making that happen for our family.”

Along with park district staff, Morgan and her dad walked the park to determine the best placement for the library.

“We wanted it to be accessible to everyone—children, adults, people in wheelchairs,” she said.

Morgan, her 8-year-old daughter Emma, and her grandfather, Bruce, put together the library, which was purchased from the nonprofit Litte Free Library, something that makes Nagle a bit emotional. It was installed by the park district in July 2024. A family-led ribbon cutting was held two months later.

In addition to music and treats, Morgan read a passage from “The Nine Lives of Curious Edith,“ written by Downers Grove author Edith Vosefski.

She told the group of about 50 attendees at the ribbon cutting about Vosefski’s commitment to make her later years in life “a renaissance of learning.”

“I love the fact that the author was writing a memoir embracing all of the stages of life, and I think you can do that by reading,” she said.

“You are never too old to learn,” Morgan said. “And that is something that was true of my grandparents. They never slowed down. They traveled. They always were involved in their communities.”

To date, Morgan estimates that the Little Free Library, which holds about 30 books, has had more than 500 books shared in the community.

The Patriots Park Little Free Library marks the fifth library in Downers Grove and is one of more than 200,000 sharing boxes around the world, Morgan said.

“The whole mission of the Little Free Library is to build community-inspired readers and expand book access for everyone,” Morgan said. “In a day when there is so much contention, being able to come together and expand your mind, escape into a book and maybe have a conversation around it is a good thing to do.”

Looking ahead, Morgan is considering having story times at Patriots Park during the summer to encourage people put their phones down and engage in reading.

Morgan visits the Little Free Library weekly “to make sure there is a variety different books from chapter, young adult, picture books and board books.”

There is a need for books in practically every category, she said.

Morgan’s employer, The Kim Moustis Group, Keller Williams Experience, a Downers Grove real estate firm. agreed to be a drop-off center for books.

Books may be dropped off at their offices, 512 Main St., between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.