175 Years!

 Our community celebrated the 175th anniversary of our fine public library yesterday on a sweltering summer afternoon. Teri Tingley McDowell, coincidentally marking the 10th anniversary of her tenure as Library Director, took the opportunity to use her considerable research and writing skills to craft a history which was shared with folks gathered at the Coudersport Golf Club.

But the celebration of this accomplishment isn't over yet as we hope to put together the history into a booklet as well as other activities to share this proud heritage. You will also have the opportunity to put in writing all the library means to you and I envision a huge outpouring of love that we'll put on display for all to enjoy!

As current President of the Board of Trustees, I had the opportunity to share my personal reminiscences of 70+ years of library use.

Thank you for coming today to celebrate a most impressive history. Your ongoing use and support of this important community resource is vital as we ensure the Coudersport Public Library will continue to build relationships that last a lifetime.

Indulge me as I describe one of those relationships - my own.

As a child, growing up here in the 1950s, I found the library a special place. That little out-of-the way doorway, tucked around the corner of an imposing brick building on Main Street, opened into a world with its own particular smell, people speaking in hushed tones and the shelves of books reaching to the ceiling, accessed by a ladder that rolled alongside on a track.

 I don’t remember when I first got my library card, but I still remember my number - 2019 - written neatly on the top of the succession of cards, for every book checked out was dutifully recorded on one’s library card. I remember being instructed to wash my hands before handing my library books. I remember Miss Niles behind the massive cherry desk and having to stand on tiptoes to put my books on the counter.

Summers were my special time to read. I visited the library once or twice each week, each time taking home a stack of eight or nine books. I could walk or ride my bike to the library - once I got a bicycle basket to hold the books.

Children were directed to the special section off in the corner to the right of the check-in desk, past the wide steps with the black treads leading to the second floor where the mysterious research books were shelved.

One summer, I decided I would start with authors beginning with A and work my way through the alphabet. Along the way I discovered Louisa May Alcott, Enid Blyton, Betty Cavanaugh, Anne Emery, Carolyn Keene, L.M. Montgomery. 

Late in the summer I came to Margaret Sutton. Her book, the Vanishing Shadow, seemed vaguely familiar.  It seemed almost the the story of the big flood in Austin. Could Roulsville Be Austin? Was Farringdon Couersport? Mrs. Lehman was the librarian then and one day I dared to ask her. She laughed in that deep voice then related that Mrs. Sutton had used this area as a setting because she was from Coudersport.

Mrs. Lehman made a special effort to get a copy of each of the new Judy Bolton mysteries as soon as they were published and I was first on the list to read them!

It was a proud day for me when Mrs. Lehman asked me if I wanted to be her “high school girl” - the one who came in for an hour or two after school. I shelved books, did a little dusting, and when she needed to go to the bank or be away from the library for a minute, I could actually check books in and out - using the little date stamp on the end of the pencil.

I went away to college and came back to Coudersport in the mid 1970s, around the time the decision had been made to move the library to its current location. I knew that spot in Mitchell Park as the community building and skating rink and I couldn’t see how it could become a library. I just couldn’t imagine the library anywhere else but the Main Street location I knew and loved.

We all know that change is difficult but I soon realized the move was the right thing to do, more space, better lighting, fewer architectural barriers.

And so began another relationship with the Library as my children arrived and were old enough to go to Mrs. Brown’s Story Hour.  My husband often tapped the resources of the library to support his efforts to introduce quality children’s literature to his elementary school students.

Nowadays, I access many books and magazines on my Kindle through my library access to Libby - though the best way to read is still holding a book in my hands. 

I am sure you all have your own stories and we hope you will share them. And as you listen to the history of our fine library - compiled so lovingly by our Library Director Teri McDowell  - you will see evidence of the unwavering support of the concept of  a PUBLIC library - available to all ages - free of charge. Through war, floods, fires, The Great Depression, the library has remained a vital and vibrant force for good.

Thank you for carrying on this fine legacy to ensure our Library will be celebrating anniversaries for many years to come.

A Work Of Art?

Memories of my grandparents' homes seem to come more often these days as I journey through my own grandparenthood. For my grandchildren, Grandpa and Grandma's farm is a once-in-a-while visiting spot but I was in and out of both of my grandparents' places often.

That's why I remember this print that hung in the living room of my Fish grandparents' home. It was not as vivid as this rendering, but faded and murky in an old-fashioned thin scrollwork frame. I didn't particularly care for it but when my mother was disposing of furnishings in their North Main Street foursquare, I claimed it, thinking it might be valuable.

But alas, as I learned on Wikipedia this week, "Daybreak" by Maxfield Parrish is considered the most popular art print of the 20th Century, based on the number of prints made - one for every four households!

But another art print in my grandfather's collection is the subject of this snippet from his Golly column.

He writes in 1968:

September Morn – It was a beautiful painting of a nude girl in the water up to her knees, about to take a dip in the chill morning air, and equally chilly water. The picture dates back to more than 50 years. We cannot recall the artist.

Way back in his bachelorhood days Golly purchased a copy and had it framed. We think of that picture on these September mornings when it is a big foggy, but –

That picture disappeared soon after Golly became a benedict. The frame was holding some other picture. We never asked what became of it – period.

Matinee de Septembre

 

From Wikipedia:

September Morn,, oil painting on canvas completed in 1911 by the French artist Paul Émile Chabas. Painted over several summers, it depicts a nude girl or young woman standing in the shallow water of a lake, prominently lit by the morning sun. The original hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It seems my grandmother was not the only person who didn't appreciate this painting.

From a newspaper report in 1913

1914

This article from 1957 tells the story.