CONWAY — Have you ever wondered how the town of Conway built such a beautiful library?

A new documentary has the answers. Entitled “A Gift of Prosperity,” the production follows the life story of Marshall Field, a Conway native who built a billion-dollar department store in the 1800s. At the turn of the century, Field used his wealth to build the Field Memorial Library to honor his hometown and parents.

Jonathan Boschen, the documentary’s creator and Frontier Community Access Television’s senior producer, said he came up with the idea for the film when thinking about stories that have both “local and national appeal.”

“I remember always driving to Conway as a young kid, and you have this lovely little New England town and at one end of the village you have this very epic building that sort of stood above everything else,” Boschen said. “I was very fascinated to learn about the history of it.”

The documentary features newspaper and speech excerpts from Marshall Field’s life and work, along with historical photos of Field, Conway and the library itself.

He is hoping viewers will be inspired to “work hard and give back to the community because that’s the theme” of the documentary.

Boschen said he received help from Conway’s Historical Commission, which directed him to various research resources. He said the project quickly evolved into something much longer than the 30-minute run time and he had to make cuts.

“When I took it on, I thought it’d be the equivalent of making a ham sandwich and it turned into preparing the Thanksgiving dinner,” Boschen said. “The original script I wrote was 40 pages long and I ended up cutting it to 20. And even there, I still ended up cutting out a lot.”

Boschen added he wants to host public viewing sessions around the region once he gets approval from towns.

“Once the pandemic ends, I’m hoping to do some public screenings for some of the historical societies and some of the libraries in the area,” Boschen said. “So that’s something to look forward to.”

David Whittier, director of the Field Memorial Library, said the documentary is “great,” and provides insight into how such an impressive building ended up in Conway.

“(Field Memorial Library) looks like it fell from Mars and landed in Conway,” Whittier said. “It’s such an impressive location and so unusual in our area.”

Whittier added that this documentary is “extremely valuable” to the community because it tells a story about Conway people may not know. He said Boschen did a “tremendous job” connecting all of the threads of Marshall Field’s life together to tell a coherent story.

“There were all these pieces floating all around and the documentary brings those pieces together,” Whittier said. “It’s nice to have a more comprehensive picture.”

“A Gift of Prosperity” can be viewed at vimeo.com/558796442.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.

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