“Create Your Own Story @ Your Library” is the perfect
theme for National Library Week, at least in my opinion! One of my strong interests as an
educator is teaching writing, and what better way could there possibly be to
engage students in writing than to ask them to write about what they know best
– themselves -- to create their own stories.
A little piece of my story that seems just
right to share for National Library Week, one that influenced my life forever,
has to do with the library in my hometown, Spring Valley, Minnesota. Like the
old St. Peter library on Minnesota Avenue, my childhood library was a Carnegie
library, made of red brick and trimmed with dignified columns. I spent many,
many long and contented hours there, and I came to know the librarian well, a
woman who loved the look and feel of books as much as she loved the words
inside them.
White-haired, tiny, and seemingly ancient, Mrs.
Rafferty was the Spring Valley Public Library librarian. She wore navy blue
crepe dresses with little dots, a tasteful cameo brooch, and sturdy black shoes
that reminded me of my grandmother’s. The air around her was scented by the
delicate lilac cologne she used, and even now when I smell lilacs in May, I
think of her.
Mrs. Rafferty checked out books to her patrons from
behind a tall, old-fashioned oak desk. I remember standing next to that desk,
watching her competent veined hands hold my library card, bending it ever so
slightly between her first and second fingers. Her thumb steadied the card
while she penciled the expected return date in the DATE DUE column. After
sliding my card into the stiff yellow paper pocket inside the book cover, she’d
close the book and hand it to me with a smile and a comment, such as “I know
you’ll enjoy this one, Jill,” or, “Isn’t it fun reading ‘Sue Barton’ books?”
Her gentle encouragement felt like an invitation to read what I was interested
in, and to my heart’s content.
Which I did, and still do!
Jill Potts
Member, St. Peter Friends of the Library
2011
Minor revisions 10/13
