Suzanne McDonald legacy remembered at North Dartmouth Library
May 29, 2022
Library Trustee Joan-Marie Proulx unveils the photo and plaque for the Suzanne E. McDonald Community Room at the North Dartmouth Library. Photos by: Christopher Shea
The photo which will hang in the community room.
The plaque going over McDonald’s dedication to the town’s libraries.
Select Board member Shawn McDonald thanks the town for this memorial to his sister.
Suzanne’s son Justin McDonald gives some remarks.
The legacy of one of those who spearheaded the creation of the new North Dartmouth Library will now be remembered forever.
On Sunday, May 29 town officials unveiled the “Suzanne E. McDonald Community Room” in honor of the late chair of the Library Building committee. The community room will now feature a photo of McDonald, along with a plaque recognizing her dedication to the town’s public libraries.
“She did so much for the library and the community,” said Library Trustee Joan-Marie Proulx. “She’ll be with us forever — a memory for anyone who enters this room.”
McDonald, the sister of Select Board member Shawn McDonald, passed away in her home on Nov. 28, 2021. She was 62.
The dedication of the room was unanimously approved by the Select Board earlier this year.
“This is a tremendous tribute to Suzie,” Shawn McDonald said. “Seeing this, and some of the comments from other people, has really helped us. The family deeply appreciates it.”
Suzanne’s son Justin McDonald also thanked the town for the dedication.
“It’s so incredible to see this in place,” he said. “It definitely helps fill some of the hole in my heart from her not being here.”
Justin also took time to highlight his mother’s dedication to the new North Dartmouth branch.
He noted that in the lead up to the building’s opening in 2020, he would talk with his mother “four or five times a week” over the phone while he was away in college in Florida. Justin said Suzanne kept him up to date about her diligent and committed work to make the new library a reality.
“And that’s just her over the phone,” he said. “When it was all said and done, it was beyond what I expected based on what she had described.”
He added while there might have been some tensions and hiccups during the conception and construction of the library, his mother was “able to marshall it into the correct direction.”
“This building is an absolute legacy to her,” Justin McDonald said. “I hope that moving forward this is something that will be a benefit to the community — [that] my mom’s energy will continue to benefit the Town of Dartmouth as all of her previous efforts have been over the years.”
