Day 73, Wednesday May 15, 2024: Lake View, Iowa to Sanborn, Iowa
- Mark Carl Rom
- 4 days ago
- 9 min read
Carnegie libraries visited: Odebolt, Hampton, Clear Lake, Sanborn
Another day, another 18 libraries. I did not know this when I popped open Goldfinger’s tailgate at 7.20 a.m. and looked out into the fog over Black Hawk Lake. I didn’t really know about anything that might happen that day, or any other day. I knew that I would drive and I would visit libraries. I knew – or planned and hoped – that I would not drink that day. I knew that four Carnegie libraries were on my itinerary, with one YMCA as a bonus. Google Maps tells me that my route will cover 303 miles and take five hours and 15 minutes if I drive continuously, although I know that it will take me at least twice as long given all my stops, as I’ll find a library every seventeen miles or so. Everything else? Let’s go find out, and I’m off.
The sign outside the Odebolt Library tells visitors that Odebolt “was the smallest city ever to obtain one.” Claiming a title that might or might not be deserved is an American tradition. You’ve probably seen a restaurant’s sign bragging that they serve the World’s Best Hamburger. We can recognize those boasts for what they are: boasts. When I saw the Odebolt sign, I couldn’t help wondering if it was, in fact, a fact; you might remember that Ritzville, Washington had also claimed this honor. Verifying which town was actually the smallest is probably a fool's errand, and I’m feeling only a bit foolish today.
Settlements have different names based on their population, ranging from an isolated dwelling, which is smaller than (in ranked order) a hamlet, village, small town, large town, city, and conurbation (where towns and cities have merged into one metropolitan area). When a village (town, city) applied for a Carnegie grant, they stated their population. These were often the applicant’s guess, although sometimes the most recent census count was given. As the guesses are impossible to be verified, and the census was taken every ten years, I can’t give you the true population of the village (town, city) at the time of the application. Here is what I found, using the census data from the decade before and after the library was opened:
Ritzville, Washington: Library opened in 1906. Population in 1900 census: 761. Population in 1910: 1859.
Odebolt, Iowa: Library opened in 1904. Population in 1900 census: 1432. Population in 1910: 1283. (The Carnegie application gave 1432 as the town’s population.)
Laurens, Iowa: Library opened in 1907. Population in 1900 census: 853. Population in 1910: 817. (I added Laurens to this list because it received the smallest Carnegie grant of any of the Iowa libraries.)
Sorry, Odebolt; it doesn’t look like you had the smallest Carnegie village even in Iowa. Would the smallest settlement be Ritzville or Laurens, or some other one? It’s impossible to know for sure. I can understand why Odebolt might have asserted its title, as when town officials wrote Carnegie, Bertram replied that the town’s population “is too small for him to consider.”
The Odebolt sign states that Women’s Reading Circle, led by Mrs. W.A. Hellsell, President, “organized to raise funds and apply” for the Carnegie grant. Online archives are never complete. Nonetheless, Mrs. Hellsell makes almost no appearances. When the Carnegie library opened, Mrs. Hellsell was neither the librarian – that honor goes to Mrs. E.P. Potteiger, who was succeeded by Lillian Hansen in a couple of years – nor the president or the secretary of the library’s board of trustees, although she was a member of the board. When the Women’s Reading Circle formed in 1896, and the Odebolt Literary Society began in 1898 with the goal of bringing a library to that village, Hellsell must have been one of the leaders. Hell if I can verify this; Hellsell’s story remains a mystery to me.
Going down the road, I find the Duncombe (pop. 381) public library, which was situated in what appeared to be an automotive workshop. The gorgeous beaux arts library in Webster City resulted from a gift from Kendall Young, who left his estate to the city – to the apparent surprise of the town’s officials – for the purpose of building a public library. Coulter, a settlement of just 219, has its own tiny, tidy, library with a bench in “loving memory” of Shirley (Foster) Knudsen.
I still get that “what’s the prize inside?” feeling whenever I walk into a Carnegie; I just don’t know what I’m going to find. I usually have poked around online for background information before I arrive, and sometimes that info is fairly detailed. The Hampton Public (Carnegie) Library, for instance, has a full page on the library’s history, written by the library’s director Suzy Knipfel.
This history was missing most of the details I was most interested in, as it said little about the role of women in the library’s history. The only mention of a woman in this history was that at the library’s grand opening, “A short address [was given] by Miss Alice S. Tyler, the Secretary of the State Library Board…” The library was not especially enticing from the outside and I almost got back in Goldfinger and drove away, except that my bathroom needs were pressing hard on my mind and bladder. As I walked up the front steps I saw several plagues on either side of the tall glass entrance doors. They read “Lillian Lulah and Beulah Alert Estate Gift, 2003” “Ruth E. Wolf Estate Gift, 2004” “Maribel Kratochvil Estate Gift 1996” and “Nellie G. Christensen Estate Gift, 2005.” I had to learn more about who these women were and why they included the Hampton library in their estates.
The library’s director, the above-mentioned Suzy, was excited to hear about my project, and she gave me a trove of information that I would not have been able to gather had I not met her. Lillian and Beulah, of the 2003 bequest, lived a reclusive life on their farm outside the town. As Suzy tells it, they rarely came to town, and then only to buy supplies for their farm. They never set foot inside the library. They had no heirs and, it seems, no friends. When they died, they gave 100 percent of their wealth to the town, with one-third of their estate (roughly $100,000) going to the library, one-third to the medical center, and one-third to the police.
Suzy handed me a thick binder of clippings and pictures concerning the library. She first pulled out a picture of Bertha Gaulke, who was Hampton’s librarian for forty one years (1923 - 1964), and an unsigned and undated biography of Gaulke. Born in 1897 to immigrant parents from Prussia, during WWI “Bertha’s family felt the scorn and contempt of the times and their ties to Germany.” This “bright, well read” young lady was hired as a library clerk in 1923 and “worked under the excellent guidance of Mary Kingsbury…Most patrons who remember Bertha in her younger years, tell us that she was fun loving, had great storytimes, and very much loved children.” When children came to the library, she welcomed them with her fingers to her lips “with a low “Shhhh.”
Bertha was very petite, dressed simply, walked to and from work, wore tennis shoes for this walk, and wore her braided hair around her head. She was a loner who worked diligently at her job and was a loyal and faithful employee of the Hampton Public Library for forty-one years.
Bertha was also strict. Suzy’s mother was living in Hampton while she was engaged to be married; she was about 21 years old at that time. Suzy recalled her mother telling her that Gaulke refused to allow her to check out a book because Gaulke deemed it “mature” for her. When her mother protested that she was an adult engaged to be married, Gaulke held her ground. No lady needed to be reading that material. Gaulke herself never married.
George Robert (“Bob”) Artley, a local boy who grew up to be a professional illustrator, cartoonist, and author was best known for his single panel comics “Memories of a Former Kid.” One of these panels hangs in the Director’s office. It shows a young Bob holding open a large reference book, with the librarian Gaulke peering around a bookshelf, concern on her face, to where Bob was crouching. The panel reads
I found our public library an interesting place even though our librarian (Gaulke), being concerned for our morals, kept a close tab on the books the young folks chose. I especially felt her disapproval when looking through the reference books on art and anatomy where the models were “not adequately clothed.”
Gaulke was strict, not heartless. Suzy handed me the illustrated book Tomas and the Library Lady (by Pat Mora), a fictionalized account of Tomas Rivera's childhood in Hampton as the child of migrant farm workers. Bertha’s biography claims that Tomas saw the word Carnegie above the door of the library and thought it must have something to do with meat (carne). Gaulke told Pat about Carnegie, welcomed into the library, and it became his second home. They taught each other Spanish and English. Because migrant workers did not have a permanent address, they could not obtain library cards, so Bertha checked out books for Tomas in her name. Rivera went on to become the first Latino chancellor of a university (California Riverside) in the US, which named one of its libraries in his honor. He may be best known for his novel, …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (...y no se lo tragó la tierra), first published in Spanish but available in several English translations. The children’s book Tomas and the Library Lady, which tells a story of “understanding, patience and perseverance, is said to be included in school curricula across the country. Librarians can change, and do change, lives.
After 72 years, Thornton had to close its public school as the districts were consolidated in the face of declining student enrollment. The village itself never had more than about 400 residents and, yet, it continues to have a public library. Thornton’s children, with their picture books in that library, might imagine that they are in the grandest library in the world.
The political gender gap (the difference between the voting choices of men and women) in politics is not a recent phenomenon: women were much more likely to support public libraries in the early 20th century than were men. In 1914, the residents of Clear Lake, Iowa, voted whether to fund a public library with their tax dollars. Ninety-six percent of the women voted in favor (155-6), while 62 percent of the men did (255-154). I’ve noted a similar pattern in other library votes, where those records have been available. While a majority of women and men supported tax support, the 34 percentage point difference between them is larger than most of the gendered voting we see today.
Mrs. Pearl McDowell served as the library’s original librarian. At the end of her first year in the new building, her handwritten annual report showed that 134 books were bought, while five books were lost by patrons and two were missing. The major expenses were salaries ($227) and books ($184.55). The library issued 329 borrower’s cards and it held 2472 books. Not bad, for a first year.
The most famous day in Clear Lake is not the one on which the library opened. It was the day the music died, February 3, 1959, as the plane carrying Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the “Big Bopper” (J.P. Richardson) crashed, killing all three as well as the pilot, Roger Peterson. Those musicians had performed at Lake Views Surf Ballroom earlier that evening and, because the tour buses were unheated, they had rented an airplane for the night. Don McLean’s song, “American Pie,” which refers to this crash, was a smash hit in the winter of 1972. I remember first hearing it while driving with some friends to sing Christmas Carols at what were then called old folks homes.
The library in Britt is not what caught my eye, as its building looked like a Post Office, with all due respect to the US Postal Service. Britt is home to the National Hobo Museum, the Hobo Memorial Cemetery, and the National Hobo Convention, held the 2nd weekend of August every year since 1900. If you were to attend this convention (it’s not clear to me that you actually have to be or have been a hobo), you could attend events such as Hobo 5K, the crowning of the Hobo King and Queen, the Hobo Auction, the Hobo Arts and Crafts show, and various hobo concerts. If you are not registered, you could still visit the Hobo Jungle (jungle is the name for a hobo encampment), which is open to the public.
It’s fitting that the hobos have a home because, while hoboing, they did not. Hobos are not to be mistaken for bums, although some bums were hobos. Hobos is just another name for the transient workers who rode the rails looking for work. At one time, the singer Burl Ives and the Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas belonged to that group.
By 3.30 p.m., I drove by the snug black and white library in Wesley (pop. 391), towered over by the enormous grain silos just behind it. At 6.00, I passed the Algona library, sleek as an Airstream trailer; at 7.00, the Graettinger library (pop. 832) with its two bay windows, with the building wedged between a bar (“The Lodge on Main”) and the Vitality Company coffee shop; and at 8.00, the Sanborn library (pop. 1392), framed by silver and gold clouds illuminated by the setting sun. It was a great day.
