Erika's Garden dedicated at Lonsdale Elementary School

>LINCOLN - Almost a year has passed since the death of Erika Mancini, but her memory lives on in the flower garden in front of the south wing at Lonsdale Elementary School.

In this 60-foot-by-12-foot patch, Mancini had planted daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, day lilies, mums, bee balm, hostas, chrysanthemums and decorative grasses.

"There are plants in there we haven't yet identified," said teacher assistant Betty Valatka, who said Mancini also worked as a teacher assistant at Lonsdale Elementary School before she died on Aug. 23, following a short illness.

After arriving at the school some six years or so ago, Mancini set out to plant a garden where previously only weeds grew. She replanted flowers from her own garden.

"Every place she could find she would plant a flower," recalled her husband, John Mancini. He said his late wife planted many flower beds at their Lincoln residence. He's donated additional plants from his wife's home garden in recent months.

Tending two gardens might be a lot of work for some folks, but for Mancini, it was a labor of love, according to those who knew her.

"She spent countless hours of dedicated gardening," said Valatka. "She was often at the school after her work hours." Sometimes she returned on weekends, too. Valatka described her late co-worker and friend as "The random gardener."

"She always said there should be no planned format to a garden; plants should be placed at random," said Valatka.

Other teachers have pitched in to maintain the garden, too.

Unbeknownst to Valatka, Joyce Burlingame, a 1st-grade teacher at the school, approached Lincoln Superintendent Georgia Fortunato about dedicating the garden in Erika's name. Valatka, too, had the same idea and had also talked to Fortunato about it.

A districtwide e-mail went out for donations last fall. With the generous donations made by students, teachers and friends, a 500-pound gray stone with an inscription that reads "Erika's Garden" and a printed single flower on it was bought and put in the midst of the colorful, blooming garden. Ten white and decorative stepping stones were placed around it. The funds also were used to add new plants to the garden - roses, azaleas and hydrangea trees. Atop the garden, new mulch was laid.

"We hope Erika's beauty will always be reflected in this memorial garden," said Valatka, who said Mancini loved her job at the school and genuinely cared about the students. "The faculty all adored her sense of humor and we all kidded her about her wonderful German accent," she recalled.

Burlingame said, "She loved the kids."

Lonsdale Elementary School Principal Jeannine Magliocco, who came on board July 1, 2008, said she didn't know Mancini but had heard a lot about her. There's something about a garden that adds to the "beautification of the school," she said.

Fortunato said the stone is a fitting tribute to the assistant teacher.

"When I drive by here, I think of Erika," said the superintendent.