Creating a library to 'benefit my community'

FLORIDA — This year the Florida Historical Society’s yearly award to a deserving S.S. Seward Institute student went to Natalie Miller.
She received this award for designing and creating a library for four generations of books dating back to the early 1800s in the Green Family Homestead, bequeathed to the Florida Historical Society by Raymond Green.
Natalie also will receive a Girl Scout Gold Award for designing and creating this library.
She oversaw pulling up the linoleum on the floor of the long, narrow room. The Historical Society refinished the existing floors.
Natalie spent many hours repairing the 150+ year old cracked plaster walls and repainted them.
In this process she found books that are almost 200 years old. Her favorite was a book donated to the S.S. Seward Institute by Frederick W. Seward that was signed by him.
She also found many books on local history and newspapers from the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). She said it was genuinely a lot of fun to just get lost in all of these books.
She said she is proud of the work she did and "is glad it could benefit my community."
The S.S. Seward Institute graduate plans to attend college in the fall.
"The Florida Historical Society is very proud of Natalie Miller for designing and setting up a library in the Green Family home where there was no previous library," said Linda Dubin, a trustee of the Florida Historical Society. "Everyone who visits the Green Family home and sees the library, a permanent improvement in the Green Family home, will admire and appreciate Natalie Miller's work."