Day 113, Wednesday July 10, 2024: Mansfield, Pennsylvania to Hamburg, New York
- Mark Carl Rom
- Oct 15
- 6 min read
Carnegie libraries visited: Bolivar, Franklinville, Perry, and Hamburg, New York
Days sober: 384
The beer man’s car was parked next to mine – I saw him get a few things out of it before retiring last night – and he was up and out by 5.30 a.m. Drink beer all evening, then hit the road to his next destination before the sun came up. What a life.
About 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas, in a country comprising 3.8 million square miles. There are a lot of rural areas out there, folks, and everytime I drive through them I get a little tingly, in the good kind of way. Today was one of those days. New York City is The Big Apple and still the state has many little green apples (whether or not God made them is an open question): Cuba (pop. 3154), Franklinville (pop. 2811), Pike (1014), Castile (2816), Perry (5813), Warsaw (5136) were the largest towns I drove through on this arboreal day.
After driving the long and winding roads for a couple hours, I was getting sleepy. My hip was barking this morning, so I had taken a couple of acetaminophen. The bottle contained, I’ll admit, a mixture of pills. Before coming on this trip I had emptied acetaminophen from several mainly empty bottles into a single one. The pills came in various colors but I was pretty sure they all contained the same ingredients. Had I slipped a couple of Tylenol PMs into the mix? I pulled into a quiet country wayside rest stop, crawled into the back, and closed my eyes. My nap didn’t last long; Goldfinger was a sauna, scented, lightly, with a couple of days of well-worn gym clothes. The car’s thermometer registered 94 degrees outside. It was surely hotter inside.
Before leaving, I took a quick stroll around the park. In the far corner a pickup was parked. A grizzled man sat inside, windows open, listening to one of those shouting right wing radio guys. For an instant, I wondered if the guy was going to get out of his truck and shoot me, guessing that my Y(ale) baseball cap and Hawaiian shirt indicated that I was likely to be a member of Hamas. When I got back to Goldfinger, I saw the rusted sign listing the wayside’s 23 rules (with an additional eight subsections). Were I caught breaking any of them (“discharging of firearms” was one of them, so I felt safer) I would have faced a minimum fine of $5. Napping was allowed, although only in your car and not for more than two hours. I was in compliance.
Grandmother has been sitting by the circulation desk, talking loudly for the past half hour. Her grandson (I’m guessing) is playing quietly. I’m the only other patron of the Blount (Carnegie) Library in Franklinville, New York. The librarian informed me that the library did not have a public bathroom – Hey! I’m going to be working here for a while! – and despite my protests it seems I’m part of the public. I’ve got to go, so I left.
The joys of exploring! My route took me through the hamlet of Castile, New York. It’s the home of Cordelia A. Greene, a physician (she was one of only four women in her graduating class of 54), suffragette, social reformer, author (Build Well: The Basis of Individual, Home, and National Elevation, Plain Truths Relating to the Obligations of Marriage and Parentage, and The Art of Keeping Well: Or, Common Sense Hygiene for Adults and Children), and benefactor of the library that now bears her name. She lectured on temperance, highlighting the harms that befall even the moderate drinker. She was friends with Susan B. Anthony and, as the person who paid the most taxes in the town, she had the nerve to tell the Castile Town Board “Gentlemen, taxation without representation is tyranny.”
After she gave Castile $500 to buy books, the town opened the Cordelia A. Greene Library – housed in the town hall, at the time – in 1897. She donated the land for a permanent library, and helped fund its construction and landscaping. Her endowment of $15,000 was to be put to operating expenses and book purchases.
As if her multiple professional responsibilities were not enough, Cordelia – never married – adopted and raised six children. And she traveled! With her daughter Marguerite, she sailed from New York to San Francisco in 1891, cutting across the Isthmus of Panama (the canal was not completed until 1914). She, along with several family members, visited Yellowstone National Park on their way to the west coast. Cordelia and her niece Dr. Mary T. Greene sailed to Hawaii. She passed away in 1905, a few hours after undergoing surgery. Intrigued? You can read her biography in The Story of the Life and Work of Cordelia A. Greene, M.D. by Elizabeth Putnam Gordon (who died, coincidentally, in the sanitorium in Castile), another prominent temperance advocate and author.
Further up the road is the Perry Carnegie library. Before entering the building, I entered the controversy. Signs lining the parking lot, which is separated from a partially dilapidated house by both iron and cinderblock fence, claim that the lot has desecrated a pioneer cemetery and soldiers’ graves. Six of Perry’s residents, whose property bordered the library, had filed suit with the town to block construction. The lawsuit did not mention any dead bodies, and instead focused on the more mundane issues of drainage and other community impacts. (This was the second suit involving the lot; the first was dismissed by the judge as untimely.) Representatives of the library claimed that the parking area was needed, as otherwise patrons – especially the children! – would otherwise have to cross a busy street, leading one “disgusted” citizen to write a letter stating that people had crossed the street for decades with no accidents, and that graves would indeed be disturbed just like they had been when the library was built: the writer claimed that “People in Perry practiced secrecy, lies and deception.” What it really came down to was that the residents simply wanted their neighborhood unchanged.
Inside the library, calm prevailed. The library’s back room is an art gallery dedicated to the works of Lemuel M. Miles, who was born in Perry. Deep brown leather couches are against the wainscoted walls and three large oak desks are in the center of the room. It was a marvelous place to write.
The entrance to the Warsaw Carnegie Library is framed by two fine trees, lovely now, and undoubtedly stunning in their autumn array. The library’s history begins in 1823; I’ll skip forward to 1903 when plans for the new library were in earnest. When Carnegie offered to donate $10,000 to the town if the citizens approved a tax to fund its operations, the locals overwhelmingly supported the idea, voting 563-32 in favor of the proposal. Mrs. Agnes Frank was appointed to the Library Board (one of six members); she was the one who formally deeded her property for the library (although the library’s history also states that her husband, Augustus, was the one who made the offer). Since its opening, only six individuals – all women – have served as its directors, a remarkable pattern of longevity:
Helen Cameron- 1906-1942 (36 years)
Agnes McConnell- 1942-1964 (22 years)
Margaret Davis- 1964-1992 (28 years)
Clare Keating- 1992-2000 (8 years)
Angela Gonzalez- 2000-2012 (12 years)
Lisa Gricius-2012-Present (13 and counting)
This is the first library I’ve visited that puts the penal code regarding libraries on its website. Not to ban books; instead, to ban those who would harm them.
A person who maliciously cuts, tears or defaces, disfigures, soils, obliterates, breaks or destroys a book , map, picture, engraving, statue, coin, model, apparatus, specimen, or other work of literature, or subject of art, or curiosity, deposited in a public library, gallery, museum, collection, fair or exhibition is punishable by imprisonment in a State prison for not more than three years, or in a county jail for not more than one year, or by fine of not more than five hundred dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
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