Notes from Sue:
Dad tells me that the house at Brada was home to a, for that time and place, large library. I don’t remember it, I was only about 8 the last time I was in the Brada house when it was furnished but Dad says the library was in a cupboard on the left side of the front door. That door was never used by the family and faced the highway. The library cupboard was about 6 feet wide and had two doors. It held more books than the school library including a set of encyclopedias that were my Grandma Tatro’s pride and joy.
According to Dad many neighbour children came to use the books in that library and to be tutored by Auntie Bee. He also credits her with seeing that he completed his high school education at their dinning room table with the light of a coal-oil lamp.
At some point Dad rescued the books from that library and they are now stored in a cupboard in his basement. We have been going through them one at a time. Almost all were published before 1940 and many before 1920. The question now is what to do with them. Dad would like them to go to someone who would cherish them as family heirlooms but is also considering giving some to the Western Development museum in North Battleford.
This copy of “Girl of the Limberlost” appears to be a first edition. It has a library lending pocket inside the front cover and the name Marilynn Pincell written in ink on the same page. Otherwise it has no markings that I could find. I wonder how many girls in the Brada area enjoyed this story as they were growing up? How many held it in their hands and left a piece of themselves between its pages. Below is a picture of the title page of the book. I love the picture to the left on the flyleaf.