“Leave it to the Women”

By

Gerry Niskern

Do you remember the first scolding you received in school? I do.

We first graders were allowed to take home our reader with strict instructions, “You may read the next four pages only and remember to bring your books back tomorrow.” Well, I was so thrilled to know how to read I finished the entire book. My mistake was telling the teacher!

Speaking of reading,  the Carnegie Library building on West Washington is 107 years old and when I say, ‘leave it to the women”, I’m speaking of many of your great-great-grandmothers.  Back in the Arizona Territorial Days , the Phoenix Woman’s Club wrote a proposal that resulted  in a grant from the Carnegie Foundation for four new libraries for Arizona;  one for Tucson, Prescott, Yuma, and Phoenix.

I discovered the Carnegie Library when our family moved to Arizona in 1942.  I staggered out of the basement where the children’s department was located with an arm load of books every week. I attended readings by authors of the children’s books in the beautiful bandshell located behind the library.

I couldn’t wait to turn twelve and could then check out books upstairs in the adult section. A world of imagination and curiosity allowed me to visualize settings and characters in endless ways for the rest of my life.

The love of books runs deep in our family. We still laugh about the 2 year old granddaughter who, without her mother’s knowledge, re-packed her bag full of her books in place of her clothes for an overnight with us.

Our great-grandson, a recent graduate of  NAU, started exchanging adult books with me at age ten. He is one of many reading friends with whom I’ve had the pleasure of sharing books. Of course, there should be no surprise there. His daddy used to sit up in his crib and read his books by the glow of the space heater in his room. When the heater cycled off, down he flopped. Then back up again turning pages when it cycled  bright again.

The kindergarteners who started school this year will be expected to learn many skills, but the most important one they will master is reading. Thankfully, there are thousands of books available in the local libraries.

The old Phoenix Carnegie no longer functions as a library, but it will always have a special place in my heart. “Kudos” to the first Phoenix Woman’s Club in the Arizona Territory for their foresight and resourcefulness.