| Jacksonville.com Isabella Heard was there when St. Augustine's Bridge of Lions opened in 1927, and she hopes to be there when it reopens in 2009 By KONRAD MARSHALL, The Times-Union Isabella Heard wore blue shoes, a white ball necklace, a blue-and- white patterned dress, and earrings to match. Sitting in her spacious third-floor Vicar's Landing home in Ponte Vedra Beach, all sky and light with her brilliant white hair and twinkling blue eyes, the 90-year-old looked like fine china. She held a glossy photo reprint between her fingers, her skin like wax paper. And though you couldn't tell from the 1927 picture - all sepia tones and fuzzy focus - the color scheme of Heard's outfit as an "almost 10-year-old" wasn't much different from today. Heard will tell you she was dressed in a pastel blue organdy dress with a silly little white bonnet, and that she was one of a group of daughters of prominent St. Augustine families who had the honor of opening the brand new Bridge of Lions. The historic span, regarded as one of the region's most beautiful landmarks, is being refurbished to the tune of almost $80 million and is scheduled to re-open in the fall of 2009. Heard hopes she can be there then, as she was long before. She was present at Matanzas Bay last year when the bridge was officially closed for repairs. As a special guest at the "reuniting of the ribbon" ceremony, she was given the last flag to fly over the bridge. One woman even asked her for an autograph. But Heard, speaking to The Times-Union on a recent Friday morning, said she hopes for less fuss in the future. There wasn't much at the 1927 opening, just a group of girls on the back of a flat bed truck done up as a parade float ("A pitiful thing," Heard said). Every time they went around a corner, the girls were afraid their baskets of flowers would topple over. They cut the ribbon. It started to rain, so they went home. "I don't remember much," said Heard, her apologetic smile shining. "It was sort of important at the time, but I'm 90. A lot of things have happened between then and now." The girls went on with their lives. Heard grew into a woman with Katharine Hepburn looks and manner. She went to college up north and married her husband of 63 years, William Heard, who is now deceased. They moved from New York to Wisconsin to Massachusetts to Connecticut to Ohio, then back to St. Augustine in 1982, shortly before people began talking aboutsaving the structure. The opening of the Bridge of Lions is one of Heard's earliest memories in a life that spans a world war, the assassination of a president and the birth of three children, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The age-old bridge serves as reminder of what St. Augustine used to be like, in Heard's youth, when horse-drawn trolleys carried people to the beach on Anastasia Island, when it was a place of beauty and sophistication - a hometown infused with something better by way of the winter visitors from faraway places. "It really was a lovely bridge," Heard said, "and I hope it will be again." With any luck, the pains- taking efforts of activists, engineers and the DOT will be rewarded. The temporary bridge opened last year. Girders were shipped out for rehabilitation. New foundations were built. And those lions needed a clean. Traffic lanes will be widened from 10 feet to 11. Safety barriers will go up. There will be parks on both the western and eastern sides of the bridge, per the original plan. The handrails need replacing, as do the light fixtures and the machinery that operates the movable span. One engineer on the project likened the refurbishment to taking a monument apart with tweezers. It's something to be done with steadfast attention to detail. With care. Like handling fine china.
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lovely link to the past