History celebration was one for the books

NORTH CANAAN — It would have been easy to forget on Saturday, Sept. 24, in the center of town that it’s the 21st century. The occasion was the 195th anniversary of the Douglas Library and to celebrate the occasion there was an old-fashioned celebration on the lawn beside the town’s historical society (the former office of the late attorney Catherine Roraback and her antecedents).

Women dressed for the afternoon party in hats and long 19th-century dresses. Library board member Bunny McGuire had a tapestry reticule dangling from her wrist.

Even the refreshments had an olde-time air. A cloth-covered table was laden with cookies and a giant cake with white frosting and frosting flowers. Two 21st-century touches: An edible photo of the library was part of the cake’s decorations; and one plate of cookies was labeled as “gluten free.” 

Lemonade bubbled out of an old-fashioned fountain.

Corey Busch and friends played some folk and Americana tunes under a tent that sheltered them from the very bright early-autumn sunlight. Their audience sat out in the sun on folding chairs. Most of the folks who attended the event were on the older end of the age spectrum (“We didn’t realize that so many of the children in town would be playing soccer on Saturday afternoon,” confided one of the event organizers).

After the musical interlude, Librarian Norma de May and library assistant (and retired teacher) Helen Mahoney read aloud from a 2013 essay by novelist Neil Gaiman called “Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming.”

In addition to noting the many modern needs a library fulfills, including providing free high-speed internet access, the essay calls on readers to imagine what the librarian of the future will look like. Reading aloud to children will continue to be an important part of the librarian’s job, the essay says, because it’s important to help children understand how exciting words on a page can be if they’re read with passion or wit or pathos.

Above all, a library must be a welcoming place, and DeMay said she hopes that the Douglas Library is a fun and inviting place for all members of the community.

“I hope our library today would make Mr. Douglas proud,” DeMay said.

For those who weren’t quite sure who Mr. Douglas was, town historian Kathryn Boughton shared the history of the library from its foundation by William Douglas, whom she described as a bookish man.

The library was founded with a donation of books and money from Douglas. Its original home was in the former town hall on what is now the driveway into Geer Village off Route 7. That was back in the days when North Canaan and Falls Village were still a united town, albeit one that was geographically separated by Canaan Mountain.

When the towns divided, there was some discussion of who would get to keep the library and its collection. North Canaan ended up the victor (Falls Village went on to create the D.M. Hunt Library, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year).

Back in its early days, the library was only open a few times a year and readers would come in with bushels to fill with reading material to tide them over until the next open day. There was no membership fee, even though such fees were typical back in those days. There was a rental fee of 10 cents per book, however. 

The library moved here and there over the years but has been settled in the center of town since 1926, Boughton said. Her timeline of the library history showed the institution in its various homes. The present location was once the home of the Peet family and, Boughton said, she hopes this is where it will remain.

To wrap up the Saturday celebration, library board member Bunny McGuire, dressed in a muslin dress and elegant chapeau, read an ode to libraries by poet Julia Donaldson.