2013: Right Here, Right Now, Take Three

May 20, 2013:  The "soft" opening of the new Lemon Grove Library prompted Ernie Anastos, our school superintendent, to seek any excuse to dash over and just stand inside the building, absorbing its elegance and grace and efficient design, observing tykes perched on the colorful carpeting in the Virginia Spencer Thren children's wing and students quietly working in the special study rooms, noting a math coach working with an adult student, and seeing head librarian Amanda Heller and her team continuing to organize the stacks.

Pete Smith, the Lemon Grove Historical Society's photo archivist, was on deck early to complete the installation of some 18 historical images of Lemon Grove from the 1890s to the mid-1970s in the display area outside the Friends of the Library bookstore.

May 21, 2013:  Jose Aponte, director of the San Diego County Library System, strolled through the library (again!) and admitted that he couldn't tear himself away.  He checked out the picture rail between the tall arched windows that will hold large photographs of a group of super achievers in their 90s--men and women whose lives embody lifelong learning.  Jose has curated this traveling exhibit, which will debut in our new library before moving to other branch libraries.

Flashback to 1928:  Tony Sonka of Sonka Bros' General Store fame (today, Grove Pastry Shop) built a drug store on the corner of Golden and Imperial Avenues across from where Union Bank stands today. 
  
Because the town was growing, the Forward (Women's) Club asked Tony if there might be room in the new drug store for a bigger library.  See the above photograph of Lemon Grove Library #4.  It was in that location for the next 20 years.

Tony promptly added a 20' x 23' room in the back at a rent of $20 per month.  By 1953 the town had 15,000 residents, so Tony added a second room and raised the rent to $100 a month.

Later the drug store became the Avalon Cafe, then Por Favor Restaurant and, in 2013, a new pet food store replete with historical signage that takes us back to the agricultural origins of our town.

Carnegie's Libraries:  How many of us grew up in a Andrew Carnegie Library?   The Scottish-American steel magnate built more than 2,500 worldwide, 1,689 in the U.S. and 125 in Canada.

We recall taking a trolley with scratchy straw seats into downtown Victoria (B.C.) to the tall, grey stone Carnegie Library, pushing open large oak doors and crossing the creaky wooden floor to the gleaming desk where sat Miss MacKenzie, the beautiful librarian.  Her coil of auburn hair, lace blouse, perfect manicure and low voice represented all to which one might aspire.

We returned our books -- usually novels by Stevenson, Scott, Austen, and others, hilarities by Thurber, Lardner and Perlman, histories of ballet and theater -- and tiptoed to the stacks to pick out more.

Miss MacKenzie would note our tattered library card and make a replacement one on the spot.  Each book had a card to be stamped with the due date, while impressive cases held alphabetically arranged cards on every book and topic under the sun.

When the New York City Library tossed its reference cards ("outmoded"), an entire brain trust vanished, a veritable cultural history, for the cards held margin notes by James Joyce, Eugene O'Neill, Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth Bishop, Carson McCullers and others who built our literary heritage.

June 1, 2013 at 10 a.m.  at 3001 School Lane:  Grand Opening of the new Lemon Grove Library.  Treasure the moment, dear readers.  You made this possible and your children will thank you now and for generations to come.

About this column:  Compiled by Helen Ofield, president of the Lemon Grove Historical Society, from newspapers archived at the H. Lee House Cultural Center.  Each week, we take a peek at the past with some news and advertising highlights from a randomly chosen edition of the Lemon Grove Review.  In 2012 Ofield was awarded second place in non-daily reporting and writing from the Society of Professional Journalists for the column.