My Life in the Little Brown House, part 12: Gowrie Library

The Gowrie library did exist and function at least in the years just preceding the move to the farm. I recall one Saturday evening before the weekly bath sitting on the steps leading to the upstairs bedroom, right in the place where the steps turn at the base for the straight section of the steps, and reading from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. I was reading the part of the book where Tom and Becky Thatcher get lost in the cave and I was quite afraid that something dire was going to happen. I was too young and inexperienced in the ways of authors to realize that most fiction ends relatively happily with all the heroes and heroines safe and sound. The library was situated at the back of Brunson’s jewelry store (later combination jewelry and variety store) and it was open for returning and checking out books on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Both days the hours were in the afternoon, perhaps somewhat longer on Saturdays.

The elder Brunsons (old Mr. Brunson was the watch repair man) had one child, Leonard, and it was his wife who acted as the librarian. She was a dark, plump, rather short lady with rather a brusque way of meeting people, perhaps particularly the younger patrons of the library. I don’t know if the library received some financial support from town or county taxes, such as a stipend for the librarian’s time. It was not a very large library but it was a focal point of interest for me (and I think Clarice and Vivian) and I visited it regularly, even after the move to the farm. I don’t know how the books were acquired — perhaps most of the original core had been donated — but in later years there was a section of books supplied by the state library that were periodically changed. My reading was not very edifying I’m afraid. I tended to favor Westerns (the principal authors I recall were Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine) but I also read all the Tarzan books that the library stocked. My mother didn’t really approve of the books I read, particularly the Tarzan books but she didn’t actively oppose any of them. Perhaps she had too many problems which she felt were more important to deal with.

Before I left Gowrie to go to SUI for school, the town had constructed a town hall, which housed the fire truck, provided an expanded area for the library and I think a meeting room for such meetings as the town council. I recall visiting this new location for the town library and checking out books, but I don’t remember the hours nor who served as librarian. I’m sure it wasn’t the younger Mrs. Brunson.

One of the less pleasant memories I have of the little brown house was an incident that occurred one Sunday in the interval between arriving back from Sunday morning service and the midday meal. I was lying on the parlor rug reading and not far away Vincent was squabbling with the younger brothers. My father was irked by the squabbling and misinterpreted me as being the source of it and administered a spanking to me. I felt affronted by the injustice, particularly at the time. In the long run though its main effect was to engender in me the recognition that any person in a position of authority will on occasion make a mistake, with the further upshot that no opinion from authority is unequivocally correct. I think this recognition played its part in the questioning process that went on later in my life as to the validity of the statements I heard from the clergy and relatives regarding religion in general and the Christian teachings in particular. Nothing is taken for granted as being true, even though voiced by individuals generally respected, even loved; all too often human frailty is all too evident.