Lemoore Women and the Lemoore Library
- Annie Bartlett and Elena Henley build a cultural resource for the community
By Melanie Levinson, Ph.D.
Advance History Writer
March 25, 1999 - When Annie M. Sanborn arrived in Lemoore in the summer of 1883, the town was little more than a small village. "The homes, with few exceptions, were whitewashed wooden ones, flowers in some yards," she wrote.
"There was one church, some small stores, blacksmith shops, livery stables, a flour mill, and saloons."
There simply wasn't much to do in town if you weren't working or drinking. Others had begun to notice the same thing. While men had had several clubs in place for some time (the Masons, an OES chapter, the Odd Fellows, and the Woodman lodge had been founded some years back), the women had no such opportunities to socialize. As Lemoore began to grow, however, the women started to think about establishing groups of their own.
When she finally returned to stay, some four years later, Sanborn joined the new Lemoore Women's Club, a group she called "both educational and cultural." At one of their meetings, she said, the women took a trip around the world using history books, a geography book, and an encyclopedia.
The hunger for learning the Women's Club demonstrated was a part of putting down roots. Now that the town was no longer being run by pioneers, but by settlers, it was time to "civilize" the place. With the help of Lemoore Women's Club (as well as Alpha Club) members, a school was established, more churches appeared, families moved into town from the surrounding areas, and finally, in 1912, the Lemoore branch of the Kings County Library was born.
The Lemoore Library was originally housed on the south side of C Street between Heinlen and Fox. It was a small building — so small, in fact, that years later it was sold to the McGlashen Ranch and used as a chicken coop. That didn't stop the patrons from coming, however. They hadn't ever had a library in town, and they made good use of it.
Mrs. Annie Bartlett was the first "custodian" or librarian, a position she held for 14 years. By the end of the first year she presided over 248 cardholders and 271 books. The library was open five hours a day and closed during Bartlett's two-week vacation every summer. When Bartlett went into semi-retirement in 1929, Elena Henley, her daughter, took her place.
Henley stayed at the library for 20 years, presiding over the 1938 move to better quarters in the bank building on the corner of D and Fox Streets. Once in the more spacious building, Henley instituted a reference section, bringing in new encyclopedias, dictionaries, an atlas and yearbooks. She asked for donations of magazines from subscribers, and the response was strong enough to create a magazine section as well.
The children who held library cards were allowed into the movie theatre for free once a year, and Henley recruited Mrs. Marvin Hanson to run a read-aloud "Story Hour" every week. Finally, Henley started a children's summer reading club that encouraged students to read ten or more books over their summer vacation. If they did, they received a prize from the Lemoore Women's Club at the end of the break. This program still exists.
Henley saw the library through WWII when it served as the collection site for books to be sent to the local Army and navy bases as well as the USO. After the war ended, Henley oversaw another donation drive to gather books to send to the children of war-torn countries around the world.
The library moved to its present location at the corner of C and Hill streets in 1959, about ten years after Elena Henley retired. It houses 29,287 books and serves 9,765 patrons. There is now enough work for three librarians, and the kind of world travel Annie Sanborn engaged in with the Lemoore Women's Club can be completed on one of the county library's computers. But the success of this civilizing enterprise is owed in large part to two women, a mother and daughter, librarians who began work with one book for every patron in a building the size of chicken coop.
Copyright Melanie Levinson 1999 - all right reserved
Courtesy Of Sun Studios
This article appeared in March 25 edition of Lemoore Advance and is
used with permission.