It's been pretty quiet here today. No sunshine, but very pleasant all the same. I've been working on some Cabot historical stuff that was recently donated. There is a report made to the Judith Lyford Woman's Club in 1928 by the librarian at the time, Mrs. Anna G. McAllister, in which she stated, ". . . a child's taste for reading is in the hands of the parent, the teacher and the librarian. That is the reason why in our library there are no Alger books. The Tom Swift books by Appleton, The Boy Aliens series by Drake, the Bobbsey Twins by Laura Hope and many others along that same line are being weeded out. These books mentioned are not true to life. Some are written in poor English. They do not give true information in geography, history or science."

I was surprised at the strong stand against some very popular childhood series. I loved the Bobbsey twin books. I even read some of the Tom Swift books. I suppose Ms. McAllister objected to the Nancy Drew series that were published in the early 1930's, too. Fortunately, her opinion was not shared by the general public, and all those books were hugely popular for many years.

In 1928, the total inventory of the library was 4,600 books. The library had barely been in existence before then. Before 1921 when the building was finished, what passed for a "library" was a box of books that were dispensed from one of the stores, the post office, or a private home. It was by the hard work the Woman's Club put into fund raising that the Willey Building, where our library is still housed, was built. Charles Willey, a painter in a carriage shop in Cabot in the early 1900's who had moved to New York where he made millions painting Cadillacs returned to visit in 1916 and learned the ladies were trying to raise money for a library, so he offered to match whatever they raised, two to one. The ladies went to work and raised $3,573.15, and Willey made good on his offer, giving them a check for $7,646.36. Local people donated time and materials to make the dream come true. Unfortunately, Willey died in 1918, before the building was completed.

When Mrs. McAllister made her report in 1928, the library was experiencing growing pains, needing more children's books and more shelves. The Judith Lyford Woman's Club disbanded in 1971 after 59 years of community service, and part of their meeting space is now occupied by the present-day library's children's reading room. Space is still limited, and the library has a continuous book sale shelf to make room for new arrivals.

Another bit of history you may be interested in is that the Route 2 Project through Danville is scheduled to get under way in August of 2010. We've heard the predictions and promises for far too long to believe it will actually happen; however, I suppose having stimulus funds available for "shovel ready" projects might have an effect. This project as been sort of shovel ready for about 25 years, but it can't seem to get all the way off the drawing board. We'll see what happens. The State of Vermont says bids will go out in June. Too bad they won't have a full summer to work on it, but if it gets started at all will be something to watch.

Fred and Bill Rossi picked up some lunch at Marty's today (shepherd's pie) and then visited the work site at the Smith property on the east shore. Mark is making changes to one of the Smith family cottages on North Shore Road. Larry Rossi is doing the renovations, and it looks as if it'll be very nice.