On Sept. 26, the Noblesville Parks and Recreation Department and Keep Noblesville Beautiful dedicated a bench at Forest Park in the memory of Mona Stevens, a part-time employee of the parks department who died unexpectedly on Dec. 26, 2021.
The bench is between the Forest Park Inn and the park’s volleyball courts. It is surrounded by flowers. Stevens was a Fishers resident and was affectionally known as the “flower lady.” A Master Gardner, she worked for the department for more than 30 years, taking care of flowers in downtown Noblesville.
Brandon Bennett, director of the Noblesville Parks and Recreation Department, lauded Stevens’ work.
“She was the reason (the flowers) looked so beautiful downtown,” Bennett said.
Bennett said Stevens preferred using old-fashioned methods for tending the flowers and was passionate about her work. She was also humble about it.
Bennett recalled that when the department wanted to honor Stevens as the Volunteer of the Year for Noblesville Main Street — a nonprofit that creates partnerships and programs to “enrich culture and community of the city’s downtown historic district” — the team didn’t tell her about it in advance for fear she wouldn’t show up to accept the recognition.
“She was passionate about what she did,” Bennett said. “She only worked part time and it was on Mona time, which was really unique. She would come in at 4 a.m. to water the flowers downtown, and she was very, very particular and very picky about what was done and how it was done with any of the flowers and the plantings, which is what made her so good.”
Jack Martin, treasurer of Keep Noblesville Beautiful — a community-improvement organization — didn’t know Stevens personally but always enjoyed getting up early and seeing her watering plants at 5 a.m. on Saturday mornings.
Martin said Keep Noblesville Beautiful contacted the parks department when it learned of Stevens’ death and funded some of the material and labor to establish the bench.
“People will try really hard to leave a legacy and a lot of people never get a legacy, and then here’s a gal that wanted to avoid all type of recognitions (in the) spotlight,” Martin said, “But just her good works that she did every day created a legacy.”
