By Shelya White
Lyon Park recently was gifted a stunning red & white striped tent that has been a central player at many Lyon Park events. Longtime neighbor Shelya White and her family donated the tent to honor her late husband, Robert White. Shelya and Robert and their 4-year-old son Steven moved to Lyon Park into their original house across from the park in 1973. Theirs is a lovely Lyon Park story:
Our two boys (now 56 and 43—yep 13 years apart, I was career-focused and suddenly realized I was 33 years old so…), and our five grandchildren (now 21, 17, 14, 9, and 7) all have played in Lyon Park. Several years after moving into our early 1900’s house, we did a major renovation and removed a clawfoot tub that was beyond refurbishing. We put it in the backyard as a lark and put goldfish in it, won from the Lyon Park Spring Fair; they survived the winter. So we dug a hole, put the tub in it and the fish lived many happy years in that environment. We later dug up the tub and made a medium-sized pond lined with polyethylene for them; they survived for many more years. When our current house was built in 2008 we had a proper pond built as a permanent home for the beloved fish. Throughout the years, the original Lyon Park goldfish were paramount, supplemented with a few fantails and a few other varieties. One year we actually saw some of the goldfish trying to swim up the waterfall as though they were salmon—it was awesome! One morning our three beautiful 7-inch fantails were laid out side by side, dead. Robert was upset…saying he wouldn’t be so angry if the racoon had eaten the entire fish because it was starving, but he was mad because it had only eaten the brains!
Such a small thing…a neighborhood fair, a kid throwing rings around rubber duckies and winning a few fish, resulting in close to 40 years of happiness from those fish for our family. Robbie, my youngest son, won the fish that started us on our pond journey, and says he vividly remembers the day he won the fish at the Fair. Lyon Park and all the events we sponsor there are so very important. We may never know what memory-makers we have sparked, but I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you all that what we do has impacted little lives into adulthood (and families).
When Paul announced at a LPWC meeting that he was looking into the cost of tents to buy for the Fair, I knew buying a tent in Robert’s honor would be a perfect tribute to him. Sadly, just a few weeks after he passed away in March 2025, all the fish died, I hadn’t been paying attention to them the past couple of months and string algae had invaded. I started over with a new batch of fish this Spring and they’re already producing babies!
