SILVERHILL, Ala. -- Elsie Chandler doesn't complain about much, until you get her talking about what children read. Then it is easy to see what motivates her at age 93.
Chandler, Alabama's oldest active librarian, still logs borrowed books on file cards by hand. When they are overdue, she calls borrowers or sends along a gentle reminder to bring the books back. But she frowns on the newest part of her small collection -- videos.
"I hate them, but that's the future," she said, pointing to a shelf of Disney and "Little Rascals" videos. "I don't have anything like that in my house."
The Oscar Johnson Memorial Library, located in a former church building, has a lone computer, which Chandler admits is popular with youngsters as the Internet has reached this farming village near the Alabama Gulf coast.
But she would rather see children reading books than sitting in front of a video screen. Books can change their future, she said. After all, it was her late husband's voracious appetite for reading that started her in library work.
Silverhill, population 630, occupies one square mile bordered by pecan groves and cotton fields. Its residents farm or commute to jobs in nearby Mobile or the tourist-rich beach resorts.
The town, located in Baldwin County, was founded in 1896 by Swedes and Czechs. Back then, the site where the library now stands was occupied by the first church in Silverhill. Later, the same building served as the town's first school and later a land office for founding father Oscar Johnson.
The library was founded in 1907 by women in the Non Pariel Club, a social organization with descendants from the earliest residents as its members. The club bought Johnson's land office for $400 during the Depression.
"People had a lot of land back then, but couldn't sell a speck of it," Chandler said, because of the collapsed economy.
She and her storekeeper-husband Leslie ran the town's general store until they sold it in the 1970s. But while she was running the store, Chandler began running the library as members of the Non Pariel Club passed away
"She just took it over and stuck with it," said town clerk Bonnie McNeal, who once worked at the general store.
Leslie Chandler was a speed reader, so it seemed a natural progression that his wife would become the librarian. She would walk the few blocks from her home to the library and still does today.
"I kept it open, really, for my husband and two children," she said.
The town probably wouldn't have a library, if not for Chandler, said retired teacher Doris Dearborn, who volunteers at the library with a half-dozen others, recording all transactions by hand.
Chandler used to count the inventory of books every year. Not anymore.
"We had over 5,000, but we have got more now," she said.
A native of Pittsburgh, Chandler moved south with her parents and 11 siblings in 1928. She attended high school in nearby Robertsdale and read a book every night.
The two-story library, which sits across a two-lane highway from Town Hall, had an addition built last year by municipal workers. The library survives on donations, $150 a month from the town and a $150 quarterly state payment, based on population.
Chandler said the town insisted on paying her $50 a month.
"That's good wages for a woman my age," she said, with a twinkle in her eye.
Her treasured memories are in the older building that Johnson owned. She remembers when it was heated by a potbellied stove, had no electricity and patrons arrived in horse-drawn wagons to check out a book.
She brightens up even more when she discusses the children's reading room annex.
"This is my dream," she said, unlocking the door to the 24-foot-by-30-foot room. It is filled with children's books and also has a drinking fountain with cold water and a restroom.
Upstairs, in the older building, there are photos of the town's founders and its social life, mixed with yellowed newspaper clippings about the library and civic happenings through the years.
|
About 20 kindergarten and first-graders from nearby Silverhill Christian Academy huddled on the floor in the children's reading room to hear the story, "Over the River and Through the Woods." Thursdays are storytelling days.
Afterward, they lined up at Chandler's desk and checked out some books to read at home and school.
They left with a gift of candy and Chandler's encouragement to read.
"This keeps my mind active," she said.
|
Elsie Chandler, 93, Alabama's oldest working librarian, reads to children at Oscar Johnson Memorial Library in Silverhill, Ala., where she has been librarian for over 50 years. Chandler keeps record of borrowed books on index cards kept in the file box on the desk.
The Associated Press
|
|
