My mother being the first librarian I loved, as I said, caused me to follow in her foot steps to a degree.
Those first librarians' faces I encountered at the Fayette County Public Library have long since blurred into my memories of that early elementary school time.
When I entered Kindergarten I was bussed across the county to Eastview Elementary School. It was a town school and I was a back-in-the-sticks country girl. The whole lot of us that were to go to Orange Elementary School were bussed to Eastview for Kindergarten. Orange did not have a Kindergarten. We were one of the few schools that had only one room per grade. Most had multiples of each grade in the school. Consolidation was the norm by then you see. Any way, I do not recall getting to visit the library at Eastview. It was half day kindergarten and I just don't think there was time. Also, students were not expected to be able to read in Kindergarten back then. I think it was 1974. Preschool and daycare were not the norm for Fayette County children even at that late date.
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Orange Elementary School was closed, along with Alquina Elementary School, at the end of the 2010-2011 school year in the Fayette County School System. For now the website is still up. I do not believe anything has been added since the school closing. There is a Facebook page for Orange elementary School alumni at http://www.facebook.com/groups/78062015408/ . If you are interested in joining you can ask the administrators of the page.
The librarian I remember from my childhood is Donna Coyle. She was also our school secretary. The school library, for the smaller children, was housed in bookshelves that lined her office walls. In my childhood memories Donna always had the prettiest smile and nicest disposition. Even when the "bad kids" acted up. I wanted to be like her. She got to dress up and WORK IN AN OFFICE! (That is another post entirely again. My love for playing OFFICE instead of HOUSE.) After I grew up I realized I could not STAND being cooped up in an office all day long, so my fascination with that occupation quickly wore off. Donna had the longest, darkest brownish black hair I think I had ever seen in real life. It was shiny and laid perfectly over her shoulders. Donna also was the school nurse most of the times, since we did not have one full time. To me she was the angel of the school. Maybe some of those "bad kids" did not think that so much, hard to tell.
Then, right before I was to enter the 6th grade, 1980, we moved to a different area of the county and that meant I changed elementary schools. Fayette Central. It was a mix of town kids and farming kids. MUCH different than little old Orange school, it gave me a healthy dose of what Junior High School was going to be like the next year. Even though the library at this new school was much bigger, I missed Donna and the homey little collection at Orange. I missed all my friends I had known since Kindergarten too. I am ashamed that I do not remember the librarian's name there at Fayette Central. She and my sixth grade teacher saw that this home sick little girl liked to write. They asked me to write something to enter into the Young Author's contest that year. In class we were encouraged to work and rework our pieces. We had a small contest in the school. I won one of the entries our school would provide. We were to present our entries at Maplewood Elementary school. I honestly do not remember if I went any further in the competition or not. All I do remember is in reading my story to the other kids in the group - other kids I had never met before - I held their attention. They asked questions afterward. Some laughed that I chose to write a book about a cat, a cat named Shoelace. Some thought it was funny, some thought it was cute. I saw for the first time that people who did not even know me could like what I had to say. It was one of those moments when you think you can see snapshots of the future glimmer in your imagination. Mrs. Butler was my teacher, but as I said I have forgotten who the librarian was. I am sorry because I would like to thank her.
When Junior High came along I was so busy with reading for Literature class I did not have time to really enjoy the school library. I was one that needed HOURS in the library. It was like savoring a fine wine for me. I had to peruse the whole collection of stacks, I had to run my finger along the drawers of the card catalog, I had to check out what classics they had, what fiction was presented, what magazines were tilted against the funny little display case for them. THEN, then I would decide what direction to start in. It could take me an additional 30 minutes to even choose a book from that area. No silly class run to the library would ever suffice for me. I would just halfheartedly pick a few out and not even worry if they had been read or not before the next library day came around.
http://fayette.k12.in.us/~cnewton/mrs_newton/webpages.html
In the above photo is the Connersville Junior High School's Library, excuse me it has been changed since 32 years ago to Connersville Middle School Media Center. Anyway, I KNOW those chairs are the same ones that were brand new in the 1981- 1983 school years that I went there! I hated that pattern then and I hate it even more now. If I ever get rich I will donate new chairs for these kids......sheesh! Just joking, I love all of my former digs at all the libraries I have used! As you can see from the linked website above Mrs. Newton is an excellent resource for the children that pass through her doors.)
Mr. Hopkins, my 7th grade Literature teacher, became my librarian. His assignments were gruelling at times. But I loved almost every one. EXCEPT anything to do with seafaring..... (I must have been reincarnated from a sea crossing pilgrim that went down with the ship or something. Every seafaring book held a sort of asthmatic reaction for me. Claustrophobia at even the THOUGHT of being stuck on a relatively small bit of wood for WEEKS at a time?! NO, no way. I get that same feeling every time I see an advert for a cruise ship! I LOVE the water, creeks, streams, ponds, lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and even the ocean. It's the thought of being on a boat for that long. It held a feeling of captivity that made me just want to jump from the desk seat and run for my life. Maybe that is why I had a great sympathy for slaves. The hopeless captivity I could ALMOST relate to.) Mr. Hopkins introduced me to the great classics of literature! It was wonderful. It was like fairy tales for grown ups! What a great idea! I was so glad someone thought to do it. Writing the classics that is. He encouraged us to adopt a pseudonym that we would use in all our writing that year. I can not remember what I chose. His was Hopkeon, or spelled something like that anyway! I thought that was neat. He knew we might be able to write more openly if we were these other people instead of our geeky little 7th grade selves. The only time I ever used a pseudonym in my adult life was years and years later on the internet.... hhmmm.
Mr. Hopkins introduced to me the idea of a summer reading list. You know, the one teachers used to issue you at the beginning of each school year hoping you will read these in your spare moments until you entered the NEXT grade. The next grade assignments, we were told, would ASSUME we had already read that list and would NOT make allowances for us to catch up. I was an avid reader so I usually had the list read by the end of Christmas break. (I wish I could go back to my former teachers and remind them of the old adage about what ASSUMING gets us....yes I AM cheeky.) I was not any more dedicated, I have found, than my fellow students. My father knew there were many boys on the other farms across from ours and found many many ways to keep me safely hidden behind our creek and swinging bridge. "Mind your Mother!" and "Do your homework!" were the only threats my father ever yelled at me that I remember. But it was fierce enough that I did just that. Well, the second one at least.
Mr. Hopkin's selections began to foster a spirit of questioning authority in me. Respectfully, but still questioning. At first it frightened me to question. I was 13, what the heck did I know to question?! That was the point, wasn't it? To question led to learning. Self guided learning. I loved it. Soon I was bored with everything else at school but literature and writing. I wanted to feed this questioning beast inside me. For that season Mr. Hopkins was able to keep up with its appetite.
http://petshopboxstudio.com/about-us/
Then the summer between 7th and 8th grades came. The monster grew a bit too fast.
Tomorrow I will continue with "Librarians I Have Loved" in Part IV.
-Suzanna
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