War Dog Monument

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the unveiling on Friday, July 16, was attended only by a handful of people, including Library Director Andrea Masters; board members Paula Jones and Karen Arendt; library patron Sharon Wroblewski and Lyman Pope, lead contributor to the library’s addition and renovation project.

It was a short ceremony, without speeches, but following the event, Jones said, “It’s a wonderful day. We’re so excited to see the finished statue and thrilled for the progress of the library.”

The monument includes the inscription: “Dedicated to the memory of the war dog. Erected by Lyman Pope Jr. to honor all dogs who served as man’s best griend during World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and to the memory of all German shepherds, most notable among them Maximillian, 2019.”

Pope, a retired real estate developer, has donated $3 million to the project, and plans call for library will be renamed the Pope Memorial Library in his honor. He asked for the monument to war dogs to be included in the construction project.

Although the building has been closed to the public since mid-March, Pope stops by regularly to check on the progress, and was closely involved in the design of the monument, working with Nicolleti Monuments in Berlin.

“I liked working with him,” said Don Piper, who operates Nicoletti Monuments along with his son, Eric, who owns the company. “I think he reached out to us with confidence. He was interested in us building a monuement to war dogs, service dogs, police dogs, particularly German shepherds. He struck me as a very determined person who wanted to get this done.”

They began working on the project last fall, ordering the bronze statue of a German shepherd and then designing the monument for it to sit on.

“We worked to design something appropriate to the library both in size and nature,” Piper said. They settled on a 3-foot cube, raised up on a square base, both of Barre Granite from Rock of Ages quarry in Barre, Vt.

The Maximillian mentioned in the inscription was Pope’s own service dog, a German shepherd from Dresden, Germany, who died in March 2019.

“Max was with me night and day,” said Pope, but added the Max was only the last in a long line of German shepherds he has had over the years.

“I’ve always had dogs. I grew up around them,” he said. He is also a Korean War era Army veteran, and as a former serviceman, he said, he wanted people to know and appreciate the importance of dogs in the military.

Pope is well known around New England for his love of dogs and advocacy on their behalf, having helped create animal shelters in Dover; Concord; Rockland, Maine; and Orleans, Vt. North Conway Public Library is his first library, but he wanted the building to also reflect that love.