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This week, a beam "av ing'l'hyra Warner Hudson was huSily working alongside Chief _Librarian Ina Kinkard, arrang- ing books moved from the for- mer village library in the base- Hudson said he was accus- tomed to dealing with multi-mil-- lion-dollar projects - fast-food chains in Smiths Falls and prop- erty on the Byward Market. But when his mother showed him , the Russell l Board that residents keep their library In core. The board moving it to a plaza. with the resul . owner of the Grocery across the Warner Library, restoration thing that eve Russell? ment of the Masonic temple. .,"Dad would be thrilled that its going to be a public place, especrally a place of learning" Thyra said. ' The building changed hands in the mid-19705 when Thrya's fa- ther died. It was a grocery store until about 1983, then it was closed and vacant until last year. The man who made Thyra's Christmas dream come true was her son, Ottawa real estate de- veloper Bruce Hudson. He says 'that he finally began to listen when, last year, his mother once again filled him in on the state of the abandoned store. "I had been on the fast track for so many years I didn't know what was going on around me any more. My mother had been talking but I wasn't listening." Township Library wanted to the Village had considered fringe shopping ents are delighted ts, Ken Ion, co- Village Meat and the street from calls the "the most fantastic r happened to Russell resid "I've got to give Bruce Hud- , Photo courtesy Russell Museum pictures of the wreath she had placed on the door of his grand- father's former store, "pride took over." Hudson made some phone calls and found out the store was bought as part of a larger property acquisition and was for sale. He made a deal and plunged into the restoration with" hardly a financial consideratio months and $350,000 later, son feels like a winner and sell's 3,000 residents have a new, bilingual library for Christ- mas. ' matched allowed n. Six Hud- A $33,000 Ontario commercial rehabilitation grant that Hudson him to restore Rus- the 80-year-old building's facade to exacting heritage specifica- tions. A petition, a demonstration and a banner across the main 50" a pat on the back as being the businessman of the year around this town." Hudson's work isn't over. The next step is to designate the building under the Ontario Heri- tage Act which, as Hudson hap- pily points out, will "protect it forever" from re-deveIOpment. Thyra still recalls when gas lamps illuminated the former store's Christmas stock, when steaming horses and cutters ruled the side parking lot, when V the Warner general store was at H , street were needed toricronvince the hub of commercial ' ' in -'the Castor River Vallegftwny Dear Store," last year's let- ter continued. "You were the hope of many parents with 'let- ter to santa' requests, the solu- tion to many hushands' last-min- ute shopping dilemmas, and the place where saved first pennies were handed to the owner for a pretty hanky for 'Mother'." In the true spirit of Christ- mas, Russell has given the :Varner store a new, happy fu- ure.