Amherst library opened up the world

The Amherst County Public Library turns 45 today. Until I saw a headline in the weekly Amherst paper, I hadn’t thought about the old library in years.

I was there on Second Street for the grand opening on Nov. 14, 1964. No, I didn’t cover it, as both my wife and a colleague asked. I was only 12.

But I was determined to get one of the first library cards the county issued, and I succeeded.

Hard to believe now the lack of such a basic resource as books in the second half of the 20th century in Central Virginia. Then again, Amherst County’s black children were not allowed to attend the same public schools as whites until a couple of years before that, and the schools wouldn’t be fully integrated until the late 1960s. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that something as basic as a public library was nonexistent.

Yes, we had school libraries. Sweet Briar College always tried to help the county emerge from its 19th century ways. And the Elon area had the first rural lending library in the state, according to a 1964 story in the Amherst New-Era Progress.

But they couldn’t compare to the new public library in downtown Amherst with lots of books that a 12-year-old like me could have and read.

From the start, the one-story cinderblock building was dark and cramped, but jammed with books.

Looking back, I realize these were the books that stoked the love of reading that my mother and father had kindled in me at an early age.

The first books I checked out likely were written by Walter Farley and Booth Tarkington, writers you don’t hear much about anymore.

Farley wrote the Black Stallion series. Booth Tarkington wrote the Penrod books. Penrod was a proto-suburban-juvenile- delinquent youngster whose antics I greatly admired.No doubt the librarians were busy that first day — more than 500 books were checked out. Judy Vogelback was the first librarian, and her assistants were Bertha Kent and Jean Camm.

Mrs. Camm was my favorite, always making me feel welcome at the library and encouraging me about reading and books.

She grew up in England and hers was the first British accent I ever heard in person. Nice touch for a little library in a small Southern town.

I wasn’t able to catch up with her this week to ask, but I’m guessing Mrs. Camm suggested the books of Thomas B. Costain to me from the library shelves.

One of those books, “Below the Salt,” about medieval England, really turned me on. I immersed myself in it and still retain some of the mental images I formed. Sort of like a video game for today’s teenagers.

The library also stocked the Horatio Hornblower novels of C.S. Forester. “Horatio Hornblower,” what a name! He was a British naval captain in the Napoleonic wars.

Despite the Anglophile theme that is emerging as I write this, I don’t believe Mrs. Camm decided which books the library would stock. According to the newspaper, Florence Yoder, assistant state librarian, selected the 14,000 volumes, among them the work of science fiction writers Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, also my faves as a teenager.

A celebration of the library‘s opening was held Saturday, at the current building on south Main Street where the library moved in 1972.

Quite a crowd turned out for the 1964 opening. The paper reported: “Library cards went out like hotcakes … the library was filled to overflowing.”

One of the last books I recall checking out before I went to college in 1970 was Hunter S. Thompson’s first book, on the Hell’s Angels. Wow — Penrod goes ballistic!

Amherst also had a couple of other sources of reading material: I got my Marvel comics and Hit Parader magazines from the dime store, and, from the drug store, Classics Illustrated comics and paperback books.

Somewhere along the way, the low-digit Amherst library card I was so proud of went missing. But I’ll never lose the love of reading that it helped foster. No wonder I work for the newspaper.

- Stinnett, managing editor of The News & Advance, is a native of Amherst County and lives in Lynchburg.