HANOVER – It took several years, but finally, the tiny Gardner Roberts Memorial Library can be moved.

Clem Worcester, library enthusiast and town clerk, wasn’t sure the fund-raising activities were going to keep up with inflation until summer resident, Raymond Taylor, of Tucson, Arizona, donated $17,000 to the library moving fund earlier this fall.

The money was given in memory of his wife, Jane. The couple have maintained a summer home on Howard Pond for more than 25 years. When Jane died at the age of 66 in August, her wish was to help the library move so that more people could use it.

“Jane was interested in literacy, especially for children. She wanted to see the library moved, then opened for children’s programs,” said Raymond Taylor from his Arizona home on Wednesday.

The gingerbread-styled library, built by local businessman, Gardner Roberts, as a post office in 1884, has been located on the Howard Pond Road for all of its 122 years. There’s no parking nearby, and no electricity. When the library is used, a kerosene lamp provides the light. It began use as a library in 1894.

The roughly 28-by-28-foot cream and cranberry-colored building will be moved to a lot adjacent to the town office where it can tap into electricity, and patrons can use the town office’s restroom. A foundation is expected to be installed this fall, and the move will take place in the spring.

A total of $32,000 has been raised for the move, said Worcester.

This has involved a cross-country bicycle trek by summer residents, Barb and Irv Robinson, who raised $7,000 toward the move. Another summer resident, middle school student Sarah Moir, raised $1,000 by collecting returnable bottles. Heirs of Roberts gave $1,000.

The town and the library Board of Trustees have held yard sales, and donations were earmarked for the library move in memory of local residents. One of those was Louise Worcester, Clem’s mother, who had served on the library board for many years.

Odds-and-ends of donations have come in as well, said Worcester, and he hopes they don’t stop now.

“We thrive on donations. That’s our only income,” he said.

Taylor, a native of Manhattan, said he and his wife, a Wisconsin native, first came to the area in 1976 when he became manager for the Boise Cascade paper mill in Rumford. They bought a home on Howard Pond two years later, and have continued to spend summers there for 26 years, even when he was transferred to paper mill positions around the country.

His wife was an interior designer who had a keen interest in the arts and in literacy. The couple were involved with the Pennacook Art Center and in the late 1970s, with the Searchlight Club, helped bring four major art shows to the former Rumford Power Co. building on Congress Street for children and others to view.

Taylor plans to help move the project along, then be in Hanover when the library is moved the half-mile from its current site.

Worcester said additional donations will be needed to keep the library open once it is moved, to buy books and operate children’s programs, repaint the building, fix the windows and pay for electricity.

Historical displays chronicling the history of the town that doubles in population each summer will also be exhibited in the gingerbread building.

“We now know that our lovely little library will soon be moved to a new home,” said Worcester.

A special celebration to mark the event will be scheduled in the spring.

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