Visiting Weston Library was like stepping into a fairytale. Flower boxes, stones, and vines on a trellis set the stage for enchantment, and the spell remained once I ventured inside the old section of the library. With $10,000 dollars from a Carnegie grant, the building was constructed in 1914. Its simple elegance gave me a spiritual lift.
The old brick walls contained exquisite stained-glass windows. Each one was decorated with shields bearing the names of dead white male writers: Johnson, Ruskin, Shakespeare, Moore, Wordsworth, Dickens, Scott, Tennyson, Stevenson, Lamb, Burns, Chaucer, and Milton (among others). One window’s shield didn’t have a name underneath it, which gives me hope that it’s reserved for a live radical feminist of colour. Imagine what heated debates the windows’ representative have at night, especially when the topic is poetic idealization of women versus the reality of historical oppression!
While most of the panes gave an unobstructed view of the streets outside, one window offered a glimpse into the library’s private office, which was part of a puzzling addition to one side of the building.
I have to say that looking at this addition spoiled the fairy-tale effect for me. Why did they tack it on this way? After I had spent some exalted moments contemplating the giants of literature, I suddenly fell to earth with a thud at the sight of filing cabinets, piles of paper, and a plastic snack tray.
Also, I was distracted by a tempting spread of grapes, cookies, Cadbury fingers and doughnuts on the other side of the glass. A staff member walked into view and grabbed a morsel, casting a slightly apprehensive glance my way. Was I the snack police? Was I researching the dietary habits of librarians? I decided to move away from the window and investigate the other wing on the main level before the next snacker arrived.
The new wing of Weston Library, added in 1981, was to the right of the entrance and held the ESL, Teens, Spanish, and French collections. Then I went downstairs to the basement level, which contained a spacious Children’s Department with murals that covered three walls. While Shakespeare, Lamb, and Milton kept it real upstairs, the pantheon of the downstairs mural included Bambi, Snow White, a Wild Thing, Babar the Elephant, Winnie the Pooh, Curious George, Peter Rabbit, The Cat in the Hat, and Paddington Bear with a jar of marmalade. I wished the muralist had been required to match the writers above with the characters in the basement. I see Chaucer and Burns as Wild Things, Dickens as Curious George, and Wordsworth as Bambi.
From murals to stained-glass windows, Weston Library was a delightful site to visit. I enjoyed feeling connected to a historical era on the precipice of the first World War. Weston’s square simplicity and window-proclaimed faith in an unchanging literary canon reminded me of a quotation from L. M. Montgomery‘s journal. In Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings, Montgomery’s biographer, Mary Rubio, cites a January 1932 journal entry which describes the world experienced by Montgomery’s generation compared to what two previous generations experienced: “They lived . . . in a practically unchanged and apparently changeless world. Nothing was questioned — religion — politics — society — all nicely mapped out and arranged . . . And my generation! . . . Everything we once thought immoveable wrenched from its pedestal and hurled to ruins . . . (with) nothing (left) but a welter of doubt and confusion and uncertainty.” (422-23). Gazing at windows which have endured for almost a century, I hope Lucy Maud would have been comforted to know that they are still here, even though the view is different.