Lakewood Lore

Beauty of written word graced Lakewood street

The great W. Somerset Maugham once said that a novelist need not tip his hat to anyone but a poet. Surely, he would have had a bouquet of roses for Lakewood's grande dame of verse, Sara Dussault, had he known her.

Dussault, who lived here for 41 years before her death at 81 in 1972, wrote homespun poems that were simple, clear, warm and fresh.

They were in praise of the beauty all around us. They were expressions of a grateful heart, of hopes and fears, and of friends loved and times cherished.

"We grew up on a mixture of Quaker Oats and poetry," recalls one of her seven children, Therese Higgins of St. Charles Avenue.

"My earliest recollection is of coming in from school to Mother beating out the meter of a poem with her cooking spoon. Her hobby of writing took the place of socializing, bridge club and nights out."

Born Sara Bradshaw in Witherbee, a small mining village in upstate New York, she attended State Normal School at nearby Plattsburg and for a short time taught kindergarten in the area.

In 1911, she married Arthur J. Dussault and moved to New Jersey where Arthur joined the Erie Railroad. When her husband's company transferred him to Cleveland in 1931, the family settled in Lakewood, living first on Blossom Park and finally on Marlowe.

Sara took courses in creative writing at the former Cleveland College where she was encouraged to pursue her literary predilection. She was chosen to head two poetry societies. In 1971, she produced My Legacy, a volume of her verses printed by Dillon/Liederback Inc., one-time Lakewood publishing house on Madison at Warren.

She dedicated her book to Arthur, who died here of a heart attack at 72 on the eve of their golden wedding anniversary.

When poetess Sara departed 11 years later, just as the second printing of her volume was going to press, publisher Del Dillon wrote that, "Her passing into the Unseen, like some large oak, fallen, leaves a vacant place against the sky."

Here, from My Legacy, is a taste of Sara Dussault:

• Quest

I looked for Beauty, found that she

Had blossomed on my apple tree.

I sought for Peace, here, everywhere.

She knelt in Church in silent prayer.

For happiness, I searched each mart

To find her waiting in my heart.

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post March 16, 1989. Reprinted with permission.

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