ARDEN, Del. (AP) - Ashley Lockerman grew tired of hearing her friends complain about being soaked by rain, freezing in the cold and almost being knocked over by wind while waiting to catch the school bus in Arden.
She knew just who to ask for a solution.
“Ashley said, ’Dad, you should build a bus stop for my friends,’” says her father, Bobby Lockerman, her father.
That was 2002. He was rehabbing a rental home he owns nearby and when he realized he had extra wood and materials, he decided to do it. At first, he thought he would build a couple of benches to complement the red metal bench he bought from Cowtown Farmer’s Market in Pilesgrove, New Jersey, but the more he built the more his imagination took over.
“With Ashley’s encouragement, I decided we better make this a full-blown bus stop,” he said.
It took two months to finish, but now it is officially the Arden Bus Stop, dedicated to Ashley, Mary and Bobby Lockerman’s only child who died suddenly from a heart issue in 2007. She was 27.
The bus stop is similar in size and design to an outdoor wooden storage shed that normally would house a lawn mower or garden tools, but with so much more to offer students and other bus riders. Three windows, one in the back and one on each side, offer light for students and working adults to see approaching buses.
Thick, expensive brown carpet with gold designs from their nearby Arden home are wrapped around a U-shaped bench for visitors to rest on while waiting. Two large teddy bears stare down from the inside ceiling, and a painting of a pig jumping into a pond of water is nailed to the back wall. It belonged to a friend who lived in one of their rental properties.
“I’d like to think that when people see it, they will think of her, that her memory will go on,” Bobby said of his daughter.
At the start of each school year, the Lockermans write welcome back notes on an inside chalkboard.
Occasionally, when the Lockermans check on the bus stop, they see that people write thank-you notes to them and wish them well.
Neighbors pay attention to it.
“Every time I see it, I just think, ’Wow,’,” said John Connor who lives nearby. “The craftsmanship is unbelievable.”
Connor said while he’s not artistic, he appreciates the aesthetic the bus stop adds to Arden.
“That’s how the community is here.”
The Lockermans rehabbed the bus stop in 2018 after noticing a leak in the ceiling and stains on the carpet. They added a metal plaque for Ashley out front.
Every Friday Bobby cuts the nearby grass and collects leaves. He changes bus stop decorations at least three times a year, including holiday decorations, and currently still has Ashley’s old teddy bears that once were guests at her childhood tea parties.
“We just don’t want her to be forgotten, because she grew up in this neighborhood.,” Mary said.
Ashley, who graduated from Concord High School, loved children, her mother said. She got pleasure from knowing that kids would use the stop.
And when she moved back home with her parents after living in Annapolis, Maryland, where she was a celebrated makeup artist, she got to see local kids take advantage of an idea that she set in motion.
“Everyone can give something back to a community,” Bobby said. “Some people who can do it in a large splash and build a highway, who can build a school or leave a library, but I think everyone is capable of doing something where their memory is carried on.”
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