Last week, I wrote a story about the revival of “Minnie Rose Lovgreen’s Recipe for Raising Chickens.” The book is an oral history of sorts focused on an old-time islander’s methods of making hens happy (and getting a lot of fresh eggs at the same time). You can read the story here.
While talking to Nancy Rekow, who first published the book in 1975, she mentioned that the road named after Lovgreen’s family has long been misspelled on city street signs. The road, which intersects Highway 305 south of Day Road, is titled “Lovegreen” road. Note the extra ‘e’.
Rekow said several longtime islanders have pointed out the typo, but the city’s been slow to respond.
Fortunately, a new form of government – heralded as the more responsive and effective alternative to the musty old mayor-led kind – is taking shape at City Hall.
Echoing the late Ronald Reagan’s famous Berlin address : “Mr. City Manager, tear down that misspelled street sign.”*
(*Reagan may have actually used slightly different words.)
Addendum: Blog reader Marvin added that the city also misspells Lovgreen as “Lovegren” on other parts of the Road. If memory serves, the city uses “Lovegreen” at the highway intersection and “Lovegren” to the east. By the way, I’ve also heard plenty of different pronunciations of the road – “Love-green,” “Loav-green,” “Loav-grin” and “Lofgren” (which is actually a road south of Murden Cove). According to Rekow, the correct pronunciation is “Love-grin.”
You forgot ‘Lovegren’ as one of the misspellings.
Lovegren was the way it was spelled when I lived there everywhere but on the highway sign. Also most people pronounced that spelling regardless. Will follow this story with interest.