Garden blooms in memory of teacher

Marc Myers was sitting at the breakfast table when his wife, Ann, walked by in the brown shirt she wore as a volunteer at the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

"You're going there?" he said.

"I'm going," she said. Mrs. Myers, who was 67 and gravely ill with ovarian cancer, would die two weeks later, but her family, friends and colleagues say heading out to tend plants was entirely in character.

"Strong, stoic," said Katie Guehl, who taught with her at Indian Run Elementary School in Dublin.

"She cared about the Earth and the world and learning," said Sandy Siers, who also taught with her.

There was a bittersweet reunion at Indian Run on Friday when Mr. Myers and friends gathered to watch a class of fourth-graders dedicate a butterfly garden to his wife, who died in 2018.

Full of plants beloved by pollinators — butterfly bush, bee balm, milkweed — it's something she would have loved, he said.

Mrs. Myers had told her husband before she died that she hoped she wouldn't be forgotten. The garden — along with a scholarship fund for Dublin City School District students and a bench at the conservatory — are ways he has tried to make sure that doesn't happen.

Mr. Myers, a lawyer who lives in Upper Arlington, met his wife in the early 1980s and they were married for 33 years. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2009 but continued to teach until 2012. She left an impression on her students. In fact, Mrs. Myers was Guehl's fifthgrade teacher and one of the reasons she became a teacher herself.

When the idea for a garden was hatched after her death, many of the people she touched in her long career came together to help make it happen. Mr. Myers donated the money, others contributed materials and

labor. Guehl and co-teacher Sara Miles turned it into an educational experience for their fourth-graders, who formed teams, created a budget, researched plants and designed the space.

On Friday, the kids sat on blankets on damp grass while their classmate, Jason Haag, 10, read a dedication. They are too young to remember Mrs. Myers, but not so young that they couldn't grasp, at least a little, her husband's loss.

"We hope the garden helps to make you happy again," Jason read.

Mr. Myers said he was deeply touched by the garden, the presence of friends, the educational aspects of the project and the concern of the students.

At one point, he found himself with an unofficial escort, a 10-year-old girl who took his hand and walked with him.

"Do you think she can hear us?" the child asked as they approached the freshly planted garden.

"She can hear us," Mr. Myers said. "I feel her presence."