Memoirs of a millionaire

by Lucia True Ames Mead

You can’t imagine how many times I have heard some tired farmer’s wife say, often with tears in her eyes, “Miss Martyn, this’ll be a godsend to me. I never get time to go anywhere, or to sit down and read a book; but if I could have that ‘St. Nicholas’ or ‘Wide Awake’ for the children, or just sit down once in a while and read an article, or simply look at those beautiful pictures in ‘Harper’s’ and ‘The Century,’ I feel as though I shouldn’t get so discouraged with the work.”

“Sometimes I feel as if I was forgetting all I ever knew, and the children are growing up so rough and don’t know about any other kind of life,” they will say, in a troubled way, and I feel sorry enough for them. In many cases these women before coming west have had good educations, and this monotonous life, in which there is so little mental stimulus, is terribly hard for them to bear.

Well, after a while, Onetumka heard what the other towns near by were doing, and one or two of the mill hands wrote me that they had been around collecting money and had secured fifty dollars, beside gaining the free use of a suitable room. So I went there and succeeded in raising the sum to seventy-five dollars, to which I added as much more. Then I managed to get the selection of the periodicals myself, and excluded the “Police Gazette” and some others that had been asked for. As there is a large number of Germans here, I subscribed for several German publications; also for a generous list of illustrated papers of a harmless sort, knowing that “Puck” and “Life” would be better appreciated than the “Fortnightly” or the “Contemporary.” Then I saw that a committee was appointed to provide voluntary service in looking after the room and circulating the magazines. I arranged that the reading-room should be open and some one in attendance on Sunday afternoon and evening, as that is the time when the men have a little leisure and the saloons do a great business.

In no place has there been so marked a result as in Onetumka. A record is kept of the attendance, and it has averaged seventy-five every day.

“The reading-room is really a means of grace,” the minister writes. I myself am aware of that, and shall not fail to keep them stimulated until they have a good library.

I started a reading-room at Buggsville during my first six weeks in the state. Here I found good ground for work. Most of the people were ambitious, and some of the young ladies had formed a Chatauqua circle, the only one that I have found thus far.

There were three little feeble churches, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist, each having about half a congregation, and each unable by itself to support a minister decently. They were willing to make sacrifices for the library, however. I suggested that while waiting for the new building they should make use of the vestry of the Methodist church. This is a large and well-lighted room, and at a slight expense for shelves could accommodate as many books as we could buy, and also serve excellently for a reading-room. I found, however, that this aroused a good deal of sectarian feeling and would not do. The Presbyterians and Baptists said that if their children should get accustomed to going there during the week they would want to go there on Sunday, and their own Sunday-schools would dwindle. In order to leave their vestry to be used solely as a reading-room, I suggested that the Methodist Sunday-school should meet at the Baptist church, holding its session at an hour when the two Sunday-schools should not conflict. But this, I discovered, was even worse in the minds of these would-be Christians, who were so afraid of each other, and I found that I was sowing discord instead of harmony.

At this juncture, fearing to lose all help from me if they did not bestir themselves, one man gave a lot 100 × 200 feet, on condition that a building should be put up within a year; another who owned a quarry offered stone for the building; the town voted to give one thousand dollars, and the young people, thus encouraged, set to work earnestly, and by fairs and entertainments added considerably more. I cheered them on with the inspiriting assurance that every cent they earned meant two for the library. The enthusiasm and good spirit, when they got fairly at work, were marvelous, and the people were drawn together in a way to make them forget their differences in their zeal for the common good.

I found a good deal of strong opposition to having the building open on Sunday. I had asked that the reading-room might be open on Sunday afternoons when there was no church service, knowing that this would prevent a good deal of lounging on street corners, and, moreover, subdue much disorder among a set of restless street youth who are fast becoming a terror to the town; but after a great deal of discussion and hot blood over the matter, the conservatives won the day.

Yesterday the building was dedicated, and I was requested to give one of the eight addresses on the great occasion. The whole town turned out, and it was a gala day. The stores were closed, and after a grand procession, led by a German band hired from a neighboring town for the celebration, we proceeded to the library, which is really the most beautiful building in Buggsville.