Opinion: My thank you to a kind librarian is way overdue
Nowadays, librarians are with-it types whose goal is to encourage literacy and celebrate story. When I was growing up, though, our town librarian in Fairfield guarded the two stories of the city library like the Celtic warrior Boudica defending her towers.
Our 1909 library was a gift from Andrew Carnegie, the legendary industrialist who donated money to towns across the country to build their libraries. Most towns agreed to build the library in Carnegie’s favorite style, Beaux Arts, which blends Renaissance architecture with classical architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. Think of the ancient Greek acropolis of Athens, with its stone buildings featuring symmetry, pediments, pillars, friezes with bas-relief statuary, red tile roofs, cornices, quoins, dentils. Then add a little Renaissance flavor with curves, graceful stairways, delicate ironwork.
“Boudica” ruled the library from a raised dais on the main floor, an autocrat elevated above us a further two steps, so I could not see the top of the checkout desk to maneuver my library card to her bony hands.
Sitting ramrod-straight in her wooden-slat library chair, she was slender and fit. She wore lace-collared blouses with a fluffy jabot tied at the neck. Her upswept hairdo was lacquered to her head, its bobby-pinned curls cemented in place with a year’s worth of hair spray. Not a single white hair was out of place.
Her voice could curdle milk. Each time my elementary-school friends and I entered the grand atrium, her strident litany of admonishments echoed off the marble panels and humiliated us. We were to wash our hands before handling her precious books, we could not speak above a whisper, and we had to step softly and refrain from dragging our book bags as we clambered up the marble stairway to the children’s section on the second floor. We were not allowed to even think about perusing the books in the adult section on the main floor.
More:Author Susan Orlean on libraries, memory and her happy Midwest childhood
Her gold tooth fascinated us. We didn’t know any adult who had a gold tooth. We tried to check it out as she spoke to us or pretended to smile at adults who entered her domain. Having just studied the human body in fifth-grade science, we knew the glittering gold curled over her anterior front incisor and extended all the way up to the gum. We loved to invent reasons for her “pirate” tooth. Maybe she had fallen roller-skating in a little twirlee skirt. Maybe she was clobbered when she was up at bat. Maybe her brother gave her a knuckle sandwich. Whatever the reason, that gold tooth gave her a rakish mien that countered her prim demeanor.
The day came when I had read all the children’s books on the second floor, including each breathtaking adventure by Enid Blyton, the mysterious Nancy Drew series and even the Hardy Boys, and Sue Barton’s challenges as student nurse. I had sped through all the Arthurian tales, plus "Black Beauty" and other horse books. I learned epic lessons from Grimm’s fairy tales and Aesop’s "Fables." I wept over heartbreaking stories like "Old Yeller," and I was aghast over"Lives of the Saints"because most of them were martyrs who were tortured to death. I read past my bedtime at night, my flashlight illuminating my book under the covers, as my mind was swept away into adventures of heroes and princesses and brave boys and girls who solved problems with their quick wits and resilient courage.
I was desperate to explore the enticing titles on the main floor, but how was I to get past our gold-toothed librarian on her biblio-throne?
I decided I would be brave like the girls in the stories, so I squelched my trepidation and approached Her Highness. I asked her for permission to browse the main floor stacks for something new to read, and then I braced myself for the consequences. Her face screwed up as if she had just stepped in doggie doo-doo. She sniffed loudly.
“And what makes you think you should have permission to look through the books in the adult section?” she queried, raising her eyebrows and glaring at me through the bottom of her bifocals, her eyes like lasers pinning me in place.
“I’ve read everything in the children’s section,” I replied shakily. “I want to read everything in the main floor stacks, too, and I love to read, and I stay up at night reading, and … and … my mother knows you and she said that you helped her when she wanted things to read, too,” I stammered. I held my breath.
A faraway look softened the features of Boudica as she peered down at me. She pondered me for a long time. Then she rose from her chair and commanded, “Come this way.”
She marched to the shelves along the atrium. “You may select books from here, here, and here,” she announced imperiously, “but you may not browse in any other section.”
I was in heaven. I picked out several titles and brought them to the checkout desk where Boudica was sorting cards and gluing Date Due sheets onto inside pages.
She stamped my books and pushed them toward me.
“Thank you very much,” I began, not knowing what else to say.
Her gold tooth sparkled as she smiled back at me and shifted in her seat so her eyes met mine.
“I love to read, too,” was her soft reply, and somehow she looked younger and prettier.
I never-ever mustered the courage to ask her how she got her gold tooth, though.
Christine Cash Gilroy is a book editor and retired high school English teacher. Andrew Carnegie donated money for the library in Fairfield, Iowa, the first library outside of his home territory in the Pittsburgh area, and for other town libraries in Iowa.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Opinion: My thank you to a kind Iowa librarian is way overdue
