Libraries.
To me, and to many others, the library is sacred space.
Growing up in Spencer, Massachusetts, I lived within walking distance of the library.
The Richard Sugden Library was donated to the town of Spencer by it's namesake on April 2, 1888. Sugden was a wealthy local wire manufacturer who loved reading. He also wanted to provide a place where workers families could go.
He certainly accomplished his goal.
About 87 or so years after Sugden's donation, a little neighborhood girl discovered the wonders of the library.
I'm not exaggerating when I say it changed my life, and had a hand in shaping who I am. I, too was the child of workers, my parents met in a shoe factory.
When I discovered the library, a ten-minute walk from my house, it was like the keys to a magical kingdom were handed to me. I remember when the librarian handed me my first library card, it was blue and had a little metal insert with a number on it. I can take out any books I like? Amazing!
For the rest of my time in Spencer, until I married and moved, I was a regular at the Richard Sugden Library. And I have frequented libraries ever since!
I have attended Genealogy seminars at the Worcester Public Library. I've spent hours at the amazing Grafton Public Library. For several years I went to the Shrewsbury Library when they opened on Sundays, sponsored by donations - how wonderful! My local library these days is our very own Millbury Public Library, which I absolutely love. What a wonderful place to spend time in. I love parking myself and my laptop upstairs at one of the tables and doing genealogy in-between looking at books.
Libraries are a place of safety, of growth, exploration and community. It's a place to develop yourself, for free. A huge part of who I am is because of the library.
Life gets in the way, for sure. Work and responsibilities have caused me to miss the library for months or years at a time at various points in my life. But ALWAYS, I have come back to the home of my heart, and I always will.
Bless you, Richard Sugden. You could see past your own nose and your bank account and knew that this would bless your community for generations. And so it has! May many of today's rich and powerful learn from your good example, and many other forward-thinking people of principle from your era, who are the reason so many of our libraries, schools, museums and bridges exist today.
I basically started in the children's section, and then made my way to the rest of the library once I had read everything in the kids area. I started with Misty of Chincoteague and the rest of that series by Marguerite Henry. I read all the horse books!
I read animal books, fantasy, other random fiction, classics, books about haunted houses and ghosts, romance, history and science - you name it!
I knew the Dewey Decimal system down cold. And that enormous, delicious card catalog, it was my best friend. With it, anything was literally at my fingertips. It felt limitless, and it made ME feel limitless.
Reading has been a refuge, a source of growth, a challenge, a friend, and had a hand in building my character. My life as a library rat is what taught me to think for myself and showed me critical thinking. It's the reason I question things, because I know there are always multiple perspectives. It provided me with my method of really examining things, then armed with facts and the skills to consider multiple options, to make up my own mind.
All of this because a shoe factory worker's kid went to the library.
A free public library with uncensored access to the written word is the mark of a civilized, moral society. It encourages growth of the mind and spirit.
How many of our ancestors, I wonder, didn't have access to books at all, for generations? I plan to continue to honor the work they all did to get us this far by continuing to support libraries.
I am looking forward to visiting and writing about more libraries in the coming weeks and months. I think I finally found my passion project for this phase of my life.
Happy reading, loves!
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