04/08/2026
Some more information on our Arbor Day event!
Growing Readers, Growing Trees: An Arbor Day Celebration at Brown Oaks
If you’ve ever visited Brown Oaks, you know the first thing that greets you isn’t the house.
It’s the trees.
Our centuries old White Oaks have watched this house through weddings, storms, laughter, and generations of Summersville families passing beneath them. They are the reason the house carries its name, and every spring they remind us that the best things in a community, much like the best things in a garden, take time, care, and a little patience to grow.
It’s only fitting that the house named for them should celebrate Arbor Day properly.
On Saturday, April 25th, Brown Oaks will open its grounds for a cheerful little gathering we’re calling “Growing Readers, Growing Trees,” hosted in partnership with the Summersville Public Library and Fresh Start Market.
The event will feature a Dr. Seuss Lorax-themed workshop designed especially for children 12 and under. Families will gather in our historic carriage house, tucked just behind the main home beneath those famous old oaks. We’ll begin with a lively reading of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, featuring Summersville’s own brilliant librarian, Natalie Seabolt. With guidance from Fresh Start Market’s Shawn Singer, children will then have the chance to create their own Lorax-inspired craft and plant a small tree to take home, giving them something living to care for long after the afternoon is over.
To make sure every child gets the chance to participate fully, the program will be offered in two workshops: one at 11:00 a.m. and another at 1:00 p.m. While the event is free to attend, it will be a ticketed program due to limited space. Tickets will be available two weeks prior to the event at the Summersville City Building.
At Brown Oaks, we believe a historic home should be more than something to admire from the outside. It should be a place where neighbors gather, where children laugh, and where the next generation learns how to care for the world around them.
After all, trees grow slowly. Readers do too.
Plant the right seed, whether it is a book, a sapling, or a shared afternoon beneath the branches of a very old oak, and something lasting has a chance to grow.
We hope you will join us under the oaks.
