Third in a series of the area’s little libraries

WOODSTOCK — Stored inside the Whitman Memorial Library are the library’s history and the history of the town.

“I feel as much a curator as a librarian,” said Pat Little, of Dixfield, who has been at the helm since July.

The handsome structure, which also serves Greenwood, was built next to the Grange Hall in 1910 when Eleanor Bryant Whitman “bequeathed to the Town of Woodstock the sum of fifteen hundred dollars to erect a building for the library for the use of the inhabitants of the town.”

Whitman was the niece of the town’s first inhabitants, Christopher and Solomon Bryant who laid out 10 lots of 100 acres each, five on each side of Old County Road. The lots came to be known as “Thousand Acres.” Whitman’s father was their brother, Samuel Bryant, who settled at the head of Long Lake, later named Lake Christopher.

In the library’s main room “is a treasure,” says Little.  Rows of books line a cypress bookshelf. The diaries of  “Herbert J. Libby tracked weddings and births, deaths and house sales and a lot of anecdotal things.” A “tramp account” from 1902 reads,  “March ninth. A one-legged man given orders Sunday morning to stay until Monday.”

In one of their original Advertiser Democrat newspapers, Little reads about the Republican convention and President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

At the top of some of the tall shelves in the library are another historic relic. Once a baseball town, Woodstock’s baseball trophies are on the main level and also on shelves in the basement. “There are treasures all over the place,” said Little.

Another nod to earlier days is the library’s check out system. Envelopes pasted inside each book have a card that is removed when the book is loaned.  Formerly the patron wrote their name on the card but that has been updated to assigned numbers in order to keep checkouts private. Nevertheless, patrons still will come in looking for their name, in part, to see if they previously read the book, said Little with a smile.

“The collection is not updated and in bad need of reorganizing and refiling. We have no computer so everything is done by cards and dates … right now it is not in the budget [to computerize the system],” said Little.

From the outside, the building has a cottage feel. The long front lawn and driveway are dotted with trees. The front porch of the library has facing wooden benches.

Inside, the dark wood moldings and columns are cypress according to a booklet that describes the history. Portraits of poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman are just inside the front door. These were donations along with furniture and much of the book collection.

A fundraiser was held in the 1990’s to build an addition that doubled the size of the library. The columns in the rear addition mimic the ones in front, but with a lighter wood.

A large selection of westerns was likely a donation in the 1930’s, said Little.  Some of these books are held together with tape.  Original Agatha Christie’s from the 1920’s and 30’s are part of the collection, too. As are Time magazines from the 1950’s.

Pointing to a shelf of paperbacks, Little said, “normally we would ’86’ all of these. Every time I think about doing that somebody takes out two or three.”  Her elderly patrons request paperbacks because the hard cover books are hard to handle in their aging hands.

While adult winter regulars number around 20, said Little, “the town doesn’t have many children. I have[only] five regulars [children].” One is Telstar Middle School student, Travis Young, 11, who along with a friend,  built a bench depicting the four seasons.

The colorful seat is by the puzzle table where Patricia Howe is camped every Thursday and Saturday. Howe does puzzles at a small card table with her friend, Ed Howe (no relation). Howe said she has lived in Bryant Pond since 1963 and is alone now, having lost two husbands. The puzzle is upside down as it faces her.

She said it is so Ed can have it face him right side up, although he doesn’t come on this stormy Saturday. She explains that her husband’s family is from Augusta so she is not related to Ed or Stan Howe of Bethel. Returning to the puzzle she says, “we’ve got to get the porch done, then we need to do the butterfly… ‘Hey, good for you’,” she says to a patron who sits down to help and connects a piece.

Sue Staples is the president of the library’s board of trustees. “What a gem,” she said  when she first saw the library. She and the other four trustees and six volunteers are working hard to bring more people in, partly through programming.

Staples’ counts her husband, Walt, as one of the volunteers. On a recent Saturday he was pulling garland off the library sign by the street, near where there was once a stone wall, “He is our all around handyman and volunteer,” she says.

At the large table in the children’s room Little and the trustees hold crafts and other programs. Recently a speaker came from the Audubon Society to give a presentation. Another speaker talked about senior health care.

Little said some of her patron’s favorites are the Paul Doiron series. He writes mysteries about Mike Boditch, a forest ranger in western Maine. He has recently been “discovered,” says Little of his popularity. Others favorites are John Grisham and David Baldacci. “The usual suspects,” said Little.

Woodstock native, Andrea Hoyt, was perusing the Baldacci section on a recent Saturday. She recalled long summer days reading Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys on one of the facing benches on the front porch.

“That was in a time when our parents didn’t worry about where we were. [The Library] was a very safe place. If you finished a book while you sat out there you just brought it in and got another. If you were ever late with a book it wasn’t as if you got reprimanded. It was just ‘Did you enjoy it?'” Her older brother preferred fishing, so she often went alone. Hoyt said she still loves to sit at the lake or the ocean with a good book.

Besides their bequeath of the library itself, the Whitman’s, said Little, donated a very eclectic collection of primarily non-fiction books. Recently when Little put out the call for a newer collection – Harry Potter books – a Whitman descendant living in the mid-west sent a set. “The Whitman’s are still donating to our library,” she said.

Little gets $100 a month to buy books. She is thrifty, looking in used book stores for second-hand copies in good condition. Popular authors are stored in the basement, where they also have an ongoing book sale. On the lawn, they plan to have another book sale with crafters this summer.

Little’s path

Little came out of retirement for her ‘dream job.’ She had been a physical therapist for her career, but spent her teens at the Guilford Smith Memorial Library in Connecticut, where her mother was the assistant librarian.

Her mother eventually stepped into the top position, with only a ninth grade education and after raising six children. Little ran the story-hour as a high school junior. “I loved it,” she said of the tiny library that was situated in a small house.

While she hoped to take over her mother’s library some day, she said the Whitman Memorial Library is very similar. All the people she had known as a child held librarian position for generations. Her predecessor in Woodstock, Althea Hathaway, ran this library for 22 years. A huge Tennessee Waltz quilt in the children’s room was made by Hathaway, who now lives in Oxford.

Little came to her 10 hour-per-week job with other varied, but related, experiences. She ran a book van for many years and she went to Kenya twice to set up libraries. “I’ve been involved in different book projects my whole life,” she said.

Future plans

Little is hoping to start a new program series this summer when patronage increases. She may also connect patrons with  a flower and produce seed swap. While talking by the check out desk, Staples and Little, agreed that a mineral presentation would be a good addition to the program line-up.

Recently, a woman wrote to Little from a New Jersey. She had bought a wicker suitcase at an estate sale, inside it was written, ‘Arthur B. Whitman, Bryant Pond, Maine.’ Little did some sleuthing, asking patrons and visiting the town office. She learned that Whitman was born in 1900 and was the son of Fred Whitman.

Said the library director, and sometime curator,  “I was able to respond to the inquiry with all kinds of historical information about the original suitcase owner, Arthur B. Whitman.”

The library is open on Thursdays: 11:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.,  and Saturdays 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

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