60-Plus Years Volunteering Is Recognized––

Caroline Stokes Receives State Library Award

By Dottie Evans

At any time of the week you can find Caroline Stokes quietly working away at some project in the library. If background is needed, we ask Caroline. She is our history…our continuity… our stability.

––Mary Maki, president, The Friends of the Cyrenius H. Booth Library

Liz Arneth recently attempted the impossible. As vice president of the library Board of Trustees, she was asked to list all the ways that Collections Curator Caroline Stokes has contributed.

“There simply aren’t enough words,” Ms Arneth concluded.

Two weeks ago, Ms Arneth watched in proud silence as Mrs Stokes gave a presentation about the Booth Library for the annual meeting of the Friends of Connecticut Libraries held Saturday, June 5, at the Russell Library in Middletown.

Then she cheered loudly as Ms Stokes was surprised by the announcement by state Friends chairman Carl Nowacki that she was recipient of the 2004 Outstanding Individual Friends Award and the rarely bestowed Lifetime Achievement Award.

Also present were Mary Maki, president of the Friends of the Booth Library, and library board member Paula Stefan. It was Ms Maki who had written the letter of nomination on behalf of Mrs Stokes leading to the award.

“When Carl heard about everything she has done, he was stunned,” said Ms Arneth.

“He decided right then, ‘We must honor her,’ and they went out of their way to give her their highest possible award.”

Paula Stefan echoed their appreciation.

“She is such an outstanding woman…strong physically, emotionally, and mentally. She’s an inspiration to us all.”

 

Gathering Authors And Book Menders

In past years Caroline Stokes was a longtime member of the Board of Trustees, and for the last 15 years she has served as library collections curator.

Nearly 50 years ago, she spearheaded a drive to gather copies of all books written by Newtown authors for permanent display in the upstairs Special Collections Room. Under her guidance, the Newtown Authors Collection was fully cataloged and she is still seeking to update it.

Today, more than 100 published books written by past and present Newtown writers, editors, cartoonists, and illustrators fill those shelves, and some of the names include James Thurber, Robert Crichton, Roger Angel, Dana Fradon, Justin Scott, Joanna Cole, Jennifer Thermes, and editor, poet, and author Louis Untermeyer, who is considered the “Poet Laureate” of Newtown.

More recently, Mrs Stokes founded a Book Menders group that has taken on repair of damaged volumes at the rate of 20 per week. She started this group after realizing that a number of valuable books in circulation were in bad shape and that attention by outside experts was expensive.

“Their spines were broken and covers torn due to normal, and not-so-normal, wear and tear,” she explained during an interview June 7.

The small group of eight Book Menders meets once a week and has become expert in its task.

“Their skill and experience is extraordinary. It’s a tragedy that today most books are glued, not bound or tied with twine. They are dropped and immediately they break apart. We’re grateful to the Friends who sponsor this group and provide the materials needed for the repair work.”

 

1946: New To Newtown

In her current post as library collections curator, Mrs Stokes has charge of cataloging all the books, furnishings, artwork, and other antiques and textiles donated to the library over the past 70 years. She also schedules and oversees the monthly library exhibits drawn from the collection, as well as exhibits of art, sculpture, or crafts by local artists and artisans, which must be appropriately displayed and clearly labeled.

Perhaps Caroline Stokes’ most important contribution, however, was in the capturing and cataloging of the Julia Brush Collection for the Booth Library Genealogy Room.

It was 1946, a little more than a decade after the Booth Library was built at the bequest of Mary Elizabeth Hawley, when she first walked through the library’s entrance door.

“Bob had accepted a job in Newtown and we were house hunting. I needed the name of a realtor. I felt like a total stranger when I walked in, but the librarian was so friendly and helpful, right away I felt at home,” Mrs Stokes recalled.

Although its Main Street facade remains basically unchanged since 1932, the Booth Library has nearly doubled in size since 1997, when a three-story addition was constructed in the back. Originally, the two big downstairs rooms were dedicated to fiction, reference, and the children’s department, and both were “absolutely crammed with books, floor to ceiling,” she recalled.

“The upstairs, where almost nobody ever went, was very dull and boring. That’s where the museum exhibits were set up in custom-made glass cabinets.”

After the Stokes had settled in Sandy Hook and began raising two daughters, Mrs Stokes taught elementary school for many years. The library was always a resource and although she spent many hours in the children’s room, she soon found herself drawn to the quiet space upstairs where she could browse among the old books and antiques.

“One day I was leafing through a folio edition of Hogarth etchings. Library curator Frank Johnson noticed what I was doing and asked if I’d mind turning a page over each week so a different scene could be exhibited. That’s when he gave me a key to the display case.”

So began the long period of Caroline Stokes’ stewardship over Booth Library collections. After Mr Johnson died in 1982, it was not long before she was asked to take on his position. She remembers the moment well.

 

 Don’t Go! Be Collections Curator

“I had been on the Board of Trustees for a number of years. It was time to resign and I was even looking forward to having a little more free time. I was actually walking out the door, but I never made it. The chairman called me back and said, ‘Don’t go. Come back and be collections curator.’ I said I’d do it for two years,” she recalled with a smile.

That was 15 years ago, and as Paula Stephan observed, “Caroline Stokes is still going strong, just like the Energizer bunny.”

She has not slowed down despite the loss of her husband in March 2004. To those who knew the couple, it seemed that Bob Stokes was always at his wife’s side helping with many of her various library-oriented undertakings. He was especially good at transport and logistics –– and this is where the Julia Brush Collection comes in.

“It was a hot, hot, Labor Day Weekend. A man who had known Julia Brush’s daughter had a lot of original papers to back up her genealogy collection at his home, and he was about to move away. He called Bob and me and said, ‘Come now!’ We knew if we didn’t get right over there everything would be gone. We made two round trips, driving two station wagon loads of books, papers, and notebooks over here. And you know how husbands just love this sort of thing!” she joked in retrospect.

The Julia Brush Collection has since proved invaluable to genealogists who come from near and far to research relatives who once lived in the greater Danbury and Fairfield County area. As Mary Maki has said, “It is the jewel in the library’s crown.”

Saving the collection was only the first step. It would take five years to sort out and catalog the massive pile of documents that Caroline said “were in a terrible jumble.”

“I farmed out some of it. Everyone read their pile and put the information on file cards. Then we assembled the cards according to family names and put them in envelopes. There were more than 100 handwritten notebooks by Julia Brush that contained more details of all the Newtown families. It was a gold mine. Thanks to Barbara Miles and Don Ferris, we were finally able to narrow everything down.”

Today, Caroline Stokes is as deeply committed to the Booth Library and its treasures as she ever was. Typically, she would rather credit the time and talent of other library volunteers than talk about herself or the award she received.

“I’m still very busy. It was a surprise and an honor. But when I think of all the people who work all the time for this library, I don’t know,” she said, her voice trailing off.

Gathering steam, she then asked whether a visitor had seen the Julia Wassermann collection of early American lighting, the permanent exhibit of Miss Hawley’s toys, Charles Henry Peck’s antique bottles, or the Scudder Smith Antiques Reference Library of more than 3,000 volumes.

“If people wander around, they will see what a wonderful place this is. It has a character that so few libraries have. The sense of hospitality and welcoming is like a home away from home.”