Chillicothe, Missouri: As We Remember

While Growing up in Chillicothe, I spent a lot of my summer break time at the Livingston County Public Library. From 1949 to 1966, our library was located at the southwest corner of Jackson and Washington in Chillicothe. About once a week, I trekked to the library with 6 or 7 books to be checked in, I spent as many as two to three hours reading newspapers on those long wooden sticks and selecting books to be checked out. I have always loved books and the distinct, sometimes musty smell of the older ones.

 I recall to this day the sense of order and almost total silence at the library. Our librarian was very nice to me and sat behind a large checkout desk, She was sometimes had to put on her game face if called upon to be “The Enforcer”.  She could put on a cold, hard stare when kids got a bit rambunctious and she had to reinforce the rules of conduct.

A library card was issued to me in the second grade and it was mine! I was a part of something much bigger than myself, which of course in those days wasn’t saying much.  For the first time in my life, I had all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of the most respected adult in town!

Finding books was something that we were expected to do ourselves. As soon as we were old enough to read, our teachers at Central School taught us about the Dewey Decimal System. This clever system assigned every book a unique number. A card record for each book was put into a filing cabinet that even a kid could use. The Dewey cards were all the same size no matter what library you were in and they all were located in the same set of sliding drawers.

 My book selection process involved stacking a dozen candidates for my return trip, from that pool I made my final selections.  I always tried to return those not making the final cut to their proper place; that meant that I could more easily find them as candidates for the next weeks selection process.

I read fast, so I still had time to play baseball with the Chillicothe Playground Association and was usually good enough to avoid playing right field. All kids had to play sometime during the game, the poorest fielders were “warehoused” in right field. There may be exceptions to the “Rule of Right Field”, but no one on our team wanted the right fielder to have to make a play. A few of the better hitters in the league would slap the ball that way and could be assured of a leisurely trot around the bases.

Mizzou's Golden Boy - 1924

I took swimming lessons at the Simpson Park Pool each summer. At 14, I worked for S. Taylor Dowell as a pool “basket boy”; I sometimes filled in at the “snack shack” at the base of the pool. I loved those orange bars on a stick!  I know what you are thinking, I did pay for them.  After all, 50 cents an hour wasn’t bad pay back then!

A bad hair day in 2nd Grade

Full Fledged, Card Carrying Book Worm

At nine years old, I became one of the few kids in my class to wear glasses; maybe this condition was a result of reading all those books. I was quickly dubbed “four eyes” and  “bookworm”.  I would scurry like a rat to and from the library to the relative safety of 1016 Third Street. I sometimes used alleys to avoid being spotted with my armful of books.   

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I Think I Read All of ERB

I liked historical novels from authors like Thomas B. Costain (Son of a Hundred Kings). I Also read classics like Rob Roy and Last of the Mohicans. I got hooked on the newly emerging Science Fiction genre. There were a few authors like Asimov and Burroughs, but a lot of SF material appeared as short stories in Amazing or Planet Magazines of the 30’s and 40’s.

 I had some comic books, but borrowed many from my cousin Larry Niehaus who has sadly left us. Comic books were ten cents, library books were free. Of course, hindsight would suggest that careful investments in comic books of that day would have likely paid for my kid’s college education and more!

However, my favorite books were sports-related and usually authored by Jackson Scholz. I read and reread his Chip Hilton series. By the way, though some might think that his 31 books are outdated; I think that his value set and positive themes still make his work good, clean reading for young adults of today'.

Remember This One Well.

 In a subsequent article, I will focus upon the remarkable legacy of Chillicothe’s own world class track star of the 1940s. Like Jackson Scholz, Joe Shy has been inducted into the University of Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.  Why no one has authored a book about Joe Shy, the athlete, and the significant contributions he made to our community in later years mystifies me to this day.

During my formative years, I did not realize that our county library was one of the very best in Missouri. A lot of forward looking people were responsible for making that so and many have picked up the gauntlet to ensure that we can still make such a claim. Without a doubt, our library had a very positive influence on my life.

Finally, I was totally unaware of how comprehensive the Livingston County Library website http://www.livingstoncountylibrary.org/history.htm was until I began using it as a resource for this blog.  For a subsequent post, I will  briefly survey the history of our library. I intend to draw heavily from the excellent work of Earle S. Teegarden, Sr.  Mr. Teegarden was my Central School principal and a man I have had great respect for ever since.

PS – Our youngest daughter Gretchen and I took shelter a bathtub as a tornado passed directly over our heads in Dallas back in the early 80s.  She was 9 years old and brought with  (1) Audrey, her favorite doll since birth and (2) her Richardson, Texas Library Card!