Faces of San Diego County military victims who took their own lives.

What might have saved these veterans?

At least 27 veterans under age 45 died by suicide in San Diego County between 2014 and the first half of 2015. Their families said things could have been different.

Debi Preece photograhs some of the bricks she purchased in honor of friends and family at the Main Library.

Karen Rostodha-Bonner did it for her family of book-loving women. The members of the Logan Heights Library Teen Council did it for the community that always has their backs. Herbert J. Solomon did it for his children. And his grandchildren. And his great-grandchildren.

As for what the marriage-minded guy has up his sleeve, that’s for him to know and for some lucky lady to eventually find out.

When visitors make their pilgrimages to the new San Diego Central Library — which had a “sneak-peek” celebration Saturday before its official opening on Monday — they will spend a lot of time looking up. Up at the dazzling dome. Up at the soaring ceilings. Up at all those shelves holding the stories of the world in their upright embrace.

When patrons finally look down, however, they will find that some of the new library’s best stories are right at their feet.

In the last year or so, supporters of the San Diego Public Library Foundation have purchased more than 3,000 specially inscribed commemorative bricks that are set into the library’s ground floor. The bricks pay tribute to beloved friends and family members, favorite books, treasured teachers and — in the case of brave man who bought the “Will You Marry Me?” brick — the hopeful power of a major romantic gesture.

The engraved messages are limited to 36 characters, but for the people behind the bricks, the stories of these small terra-cotta talismans require a few more letters. And a lot more space.

The story of Karen Rostodha-Bonner’s bricks spans multiple generations of industrious book fiends. One brick honors her paternal grandmother, Deborah Douglas, who worked at the downtown library for 25 years and helped introduce Karen and her sister, Sheri, to the wonders of poetry and Nancy Drew. Then came Rostodha-Bonner’s mother, Shirley Rostodha, who worked at the same library for a time and is still a voracious reader.

Deborah Douglas doted on her library. So much so, her granddaughters grew up thinking she was a librarian. As they later discovered, Deborah Douglas was a custodian, a job she did with meticulous pride from 1951 until her retirement in July of 1976. She died just a few months later, but Douglas’ spirit lives on in her granddaughters and in her great-granddaughter, Isabella Bonner, a 6-year-old budding bookworm who is already inching along in her great-grandmother’s footsteps.

Douglas’ memory also lives on in the new library, where the bricks Rostodha-Bonner bought and had inscribed for “Granny” and for her mother share sunny spots on the Garden Courtyard floor.

“I thought it was important that my grandmother be a part of the new library. Even though she was only a small part of the library, she was a huge part of our lives,” said Rostodha-Bonner, a freelance media consultant and the mother of Isabella. “I want her to be part of it and my mother to be part of it, and I want my daughter to go there and know that these two special women made an impact.”

Since the Library Foundation began promoting it last year, the “Buy a Brick” program has hit donors like a ton of you-know-whats. The bricks in the main lobby are going for $1,000. For $500, you can still buy a brick in the Trellis Walk area. The most popular bricks are the ones in the Garden Courtyard, which cost $150 ﻿apiece and will not be available after Oct. 1.

“When we talk about the library, the words we use are ‘access’ and ‘community,’ and that’s what this (bricks) campaign is all about,” said Jay Hill, CEO of the San Diego Public Library Foundation. “This is where the stories are being told.”

At the Logan Heights branch library, the story of the Teen Council brick is one of teamwork and tamales.

Because this library acts as a community center, after-school hangout and all-around support network, the teen volunteers do a lot more than shelve books. In return for what the library does for them, the teens help run its popular after-school music program. They are homework tutors and pre-college mentors. The council members also take on yearly fundraising projects. The group’s latest project was supporting the new library in the form of a $150 brick, which the teens paid for by selling tamales and champurrado (hot chocolate) at the Christmas holidays.

The Teen Council members won’t see their brick until they tour the grand new library later next month, ﻿but knowing it’s there is a cause for noisy celebration. “We really wanted to buy a brick to help the library and give back,” said Sara Espinosa, who shares the Teen Council presidency with Edwina Jimenez. “We have done a lot of work to get to where we are, and the community has helped us out so much. So this is something we wanted to do for the community.

Some people loved the bricks so much, they bought them in bulk.

After Vector Resources Inc. spent the last few years on the library’s voice and data network infrastructure, general manager Debi Preece ﻿felt so invested in the library’s future, she invested in about a dozen courtyard bricks. Since the library was beginning to feel like her home away from home anyway, she decided to put a piece of her heart there, too.

“I was so excited, I can’t even tell you,” said Preece, who bought bricks for her in-laws, her former in-laws, her daughters and her late Uncle Bobby (the much-loved SDSU athletic trainer and professor Robert J. Moore). “The chance to honor my family and be part of San Diego history and this iconic building was very meaningful to me. It seemed like a cool way to pay tribute to the important people in my life.”

Longtime local attorney and library supporter Herbert J. Solomon bought 27 lobby bricks for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And thanks to the foundation, there is also a brick in honor of Solomon and his late wife, Elene. Solomon got a tour of the library earlier this month, but he never saw his bricks. Probably because he was too busy taking in the structure they helped to build. One precious memory at a time.

“It is magnificent,” Solomon said of the new library. “I didn’t find my bricks, but that’s not the reason I was there. Sometime I’ll find out where they are.”

karla.peterson@utsandiego.com • (619) 293-1275
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