Sometimes the ugly headlines are enough. Too much, really. Defunding libraries? How can this even be an idea, much less an attempt in the Missouri legislature?

I can’t help but wonder what Mom would think about this. Libraries were her lifeline as we moved from state to state in the 1960s and ’70s. I have a feeling she and Dad checked out schools, churches, parks – and libraries – while househunting each time.

The library I remember most was in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where we lived from 1962 through 1970.

Was this really a library? To eight-year-old me, it was a castle full of books!

I remember climbing the grand wooden stairway to reach the magical Children’s Room. (Someday I hope to find a photo or two of the incredible murals painted on the impossibly tall walls. The murals represented classic children’s stories. It was a room created just for us.)

There’s a brief history of the Berkshire Athenaeum here, which is fascinating.

Although her nest was full of young chicks, Mom got involved with the Friends of the Berkshire Athenaeum organization, serving as secretary in 1967. She also volunteered at a weekly story hour for toddlers (brave woman!) and with the Recording for the Blind organization (now called Learning Ally) long before audiobooks existed.

Well before she was a mother of four, though, Mom was a newlywed. Her husband was in the Army, stationed overseas.

A newly-graduated English major, Mom found a job as an assistant librarian at the New Haven Free Public Library in 1952. She saved up for buying furniture when Dad returned and they could finally settle in together as husband and wife.

Her younger sister, Bunny, worked at the library, too.

Bunny and I had a nice chat on the phone this week. She remembered working at the library. She and Mom served in multiple departments. Mom was on the third floor and Bunny was on the ground floor. They both worked in the children’s room at times. Bunny even got to work the switchboard.

I asked how they got to work, since the library was about three miles away from their parents’ house. At first, they took the bus from Chatham Street to Elm Street. But then, a friend at work saved all her paychecks and bought a convertible! Luckily, she also lived in their Fair Haven neighborhood, so sometimes they enjoyed rides to work with her.

When Dad shipped home some gifts for Mom, she loaned them to the library for a display:

My brothers now share those Japanese woodblock prints and Kokeshi dolls.

I remember Mom reminiscing about how delicious it was to sneak-read several just-published books that had already been reserved by other readers, but not yet picked up from the main desk.

In 2004, Mom wrote this poem about how, even in her 70s, she felt a thrill taking home a new batch of library books.

Orchard

An honor
phoning from home for library books
one snowy day
I pictured them waiting for me
holding my name up

I admire the journeys of letters
across the miles and the weather
and the gathering of books for feasting
like fruits from an orchard

This morning I meet them
like friends at a railroad station
hail them and bring them home
where the snow has stopped
and the adventures barely begun

~ joan vayo December 21, 2004

I have to admit, my favorite library is the one here in our home. With volumes Gary and I have collected over the years joined by many of Mom and Dad’s books, it’s a very happy place to be.

Let’s hope Missouri smartens up and takes good care of its libraries. One of their most famous sons put it this way, so many years ago:

You cannot stop the spread of an idea by passing a law against it.
– Harry S. Truman, U.S. President 1945-1953

“Orchard” © 2004 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

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