The Cat in the Hat, Horton the Elephant, Yertle the Turtle and other fanciful creations of Dr. Seuss will be back in a memorial to the popular children’s author.

Springfield, Mass., the hometown of Theodor Geisel, known to millions of children as Dr. Seuss, will create a memorial populated with six bronze sculptures of characters from his books.

The centerpiece will be statues of Horton the Elephant, Sam from Green Eggs and Ham, Thing 1 and Thing 2 and other Seuss characters all emerging from an open book.

Geisel’s stepdaughter, sculptor Lark Grey Dimond-Cates, will create the bronze works, which will encircle the town library in downtown Springfield.

Dimond-Cates, who as a child watched the Seuss characters come to life on paper, said she hoped memorial viewers would gain a deeper appreciation of Dr. Seuss and his books.

“I want people to leave taking Dr. Seuss’ work a little more seriously,” she said. “I think a lot people take Dr. Seuss lightly _ it’s fluff, it’s cute. If you sit down and read his books carefully, they have so much more to them.” The project, expected to be completed by the summer of 1999, will cost $4 million to $6 million.

Symington debt goes to pottery

Former Gov. Fife Symington’s debt is a little bit lighter.

A platinum brooch and two pieces of Indian pottery helped Symington’s bankruptcy auction fetch about $19,000. About 150 people turned up for Sunday’s auction at which members of the American Indian Movement banged drums and urged bidders not to run up the price on the pottery.

The first pottery jar sold for $975 and the second for $1,000, two of 27 items sold in Symington’s estate auction as part of his federal bankruptcy case. Proceeds went to the case’s trustees.

The highest-selling item was the brooch in a clover design, with ruby leaves surrounded by diamonds.

All the auction items were given by Symington, great-grandson of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, to his wife, Ann, as collateral for loans. The court decided the gift was illegal and ordered Mrs. Symington to give the items back to her husband and subsequently into the hands of the court.

Symington filed for bankruptcy in September 1995, citing debts of more than $24 million and assets of $61,000. The former Republican governor, who resigned earlier this month, is awaiting sentencing on seven bank-fraud counts.

Old friend buys Onassis’ house

A neighbor who has tended to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ house since her death in 1994 now owns it.

The secluded two-story converted barn in Bernardsville, N.J., was purchased by longtime friend Marjorie “Peggy” McDonnell Walsh for $1.47 million on July 27, according to deed records.

Walsh and New York attorney George Goodman, who represented Mrs. Onassis’ daughter, Caroline Kennedy, in the sale, declined comment on the sale.

The former first lady bought the house on 9.9 acres in 1974 for $200,000. She used the house as a weekend home and neighbors often saw her horseback-riding on her property

Mayor Hugh Fenwick said Walsh was an old friend who was the reason Onassis bought the house in the first place.