Let’s begin, as so many good things begin, with the dream.
For years, conservative political activist, wife, and mother Connie Marshner of Front Royal, Va., dreamed of opening a private library, one aimed particularly at children.
“I had collected books forever, especially children’s books, because I believe so strongly in beauty and beautiful books,” Marshner said. “Children spend hours looking at books, and they’re forming their artistic sensibilities looking at the illustrations. So, I thought, why not see if other people will appreciate them?”
After being sidetracked for several years by other obligations, Marshner advertised her project in her church’s weekly bulletin in 2024. As a result, over a dozen parishioners, several of them teenagers, stepped forward to help set up a library in Marshner’s basement, which would be aimed first and foremost at Catholic homeschoolers.
“But it will be open to anyone with a love of good books,” Lara Purciel told me just before the library opened. Purciel was one who answered Marshner’s call for volunteers. The two women hit it off, and Purciel became the head librarian of St. Columba’s Place.
During our first conversation together, Purciel was directing several volunteers and answering their questions while she put bar codes into books they’d received as donations. Later, she spoke highly of all who gave their time over the months to this enterprise: “They’ll pick up a pack of Sharpie markers at Costco and bring them to the library. They log things into the system. They put books into the database, they shelve books and organize books.”
The volunteers are never short on things to do, for the books just keep coming. In the last few months alone, the collection has grown from 900 to more than 3,000 volumes.
And now that hard work has paid off. In mid-February the St. Columba’s Place Library opened its doors for business.
Because of limited parking, patrons must make an appointment to come and browse the books. The library’s database program, TinyCat, permits those same patrons to look over the library’s holdings from their homes and place the books they want on reserve. For use of the library, families pay a modest annual subscription fee of $80.
What they receive in return are literary treasures.
Many of the titles in St. Columba’s Place – “Black Beauty,” “Mary Poppins,” Arthur Ransome’s “Swallows and Amazons” series – can be found in public libraries, as can some of the books for adults. What makes this library a delight for any bibliophile are the older gems in its collection. Here, for instance, are some of those elementary school readers from 70 and 80 years ago, all long out-of-print, all filled with classic tales. Here are sets like “Junior Classics” for young readers and lovely old picture books, many of them no longer stocked in public libraries, for the pre-school crew.
Other libraries like St. Columba are springing up around the country. Since the spring of 2023, for example, Purciel’s good friend Sara Masarik has operated Plumfield Living Books Library in the basement of her Wisconsin home, with a collection of over 12,000 books. She has served as an inspiration to Purciel, and Masarik was in turn inspired by others who founded private libraries. One singular image also fuels her enthusiasm: “When you see a child loving a book, that book is living its best life, and that child’s soul is being formed by that book. Suddenly you feel a great need to make that book as available as possible. That’s my motivation.”
Marshner and Purciel are equally dream-driven in their quest to bring good books and young readers together. “I must have read ‘My Friend Flicka’ five times,” Marshner said, recollecting the life-enhancing books of her childhood. “It showed me how we can overcome adversity and deal with disappointment and sorrow. That’s the sort of content that has to be in children’s literature for civilization to survive.”
“I just love the experience of sitting down with a child and a beautiful book, and talking about the pictures and the story, and I wanted to help families create that culture at home as well,” Purciel added.
Over the last five years, the eyes of many have been opened to the problematic things introduced to our children’s minds, hearts and bodies, not the least of which are the questionable books and materials slipping into our public libraries. It’s average Americans like these women – the homeschool moms, entrepreneurs, defenders of family and marriage – who take the challenge and fight in little ways to take back their country. Often blind to their own virtues, these individuals are living monuments to the can-do spirit of America.
These are the true keepers of the American soul.
Jeff Minick is a father of four and grandfather to many. A former history, literature, and Latin teacher, Jeff now writes prolifically for The Epoch Times, American Essence Magazine, and several other publications.
This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. To comment on this article, please email culture@1819news.com. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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