Pardeeville Library Serves as Backdrop to Wedding

Link to September 3 Portage Daily Register article, "One for the history books: Couple wed outside Pardeeville library".

Excerpt:   On Friday, the garden and steps just outside the Angie Williams Cox Public Library was the scene of a wedding - a first, to the knowledge of those who came to see Mary Fietz and Timothy Harris take their marriage vows.

The groom, who grew up in Pardeeville, said he and his bride chose the site for its beauty and for its connection to Harris' youth.

The fact that the library is marking its 100th anniversary this year was a tidbit they found out later.

Gary Yurgil, the library's director, said he knows of no other previous occasion when the library's exterior - which includes open lawns, numerous flower gardens and a display of a millstone from an 1860s-era gristmill that was a principal industry in the early days of Pardeeville - was used for a wedding.

"It's a nice setting," Yurgil said. "The park around the library is so nice, thanks to the library's Endowment Board."

For the groom, the library is not only a childhood memory but also a place where, on occasional summer Thursdays, he travels from his home in Saddle Ridge near Portage to attend a concert and pie-ice cream social.