A Library for Leland

A public library had already been established in Leland by December 1918. The earliest evidence found was a December 19 Earlville Leader article that reported results of the election of officers of the Leland Library association. Adah Hansen was elected president; Jennie Kinne, treasurer; and Gladys Benson, secretary. Twenty new books were also ordered.

In February 1920 the Leland Women’s Club was considering taking over responsibility for the library. “Mesdames Watts, Ericson, Davis, Anderson, and Balsley” composed the investigation committee to report back the following month. From later articles found, they must have agreed

To help finance the library, a fee of one dollar was charged to each member. At that time the library held 625 books. When several books came up missing, a newspaper announcement requested members to “please search their shelves [and] the following volumes will probably be discovered … where busy days and crowded evenings have left them forgotten.” Missing were: Mother; A Certain Rich Man; Keeping up with Lizzie; City of Comrades; Frenzied Fiction; The Lookout Man; and American Government.

In 1923 the Women’s Club launched a campaign for Adams Township to undertake the library; however, the proposal was rejected by the voters 279 to 55, and library supervision remained with the Women’s Club.

By 1935 the membership and dues system had been suspended and anyone could check out books during library hours on Fridays 3:00-5:00 p.m. Library board members at the time were Mrs. Luther Ferris, chair; Mrs. Willard Hanson, Mrs. S.C. Grover, Elma Seville, Ruby Hanson, and Monsie Harmon.

The April 12, 1940, Somonauk Reveille reported that “Leland has long felt the need of better Library facilities.” A W.P.A. project brought that dream to fruition. The library over Hanson’s Market was redecorated, old books were rebound and classified, Mrs. Tessie Baker was hired as Librarian, hours were expanded to five days a week (closed Thursday and Sunday), hundreds of volumes were added, and services were free for both adults and children. About 100 people attended the opening tea in May. Toward the end of 1941, librarian Tesse Baker reported a total of 229 borrowers, who checked out 455 books in October alone.

Bereft of a public library for several decades, in 2001 retired teacher Jane McGuinn, at the age of 90 and with the encouragement and help of her daughter Molly Donahue, organized “The Reading Room” in the old school owned by Gerard Brouwer. The library operated on the honor system for taking out and returning books and relied on donations, both new and used, to stock the shelves. The Reading Room operated from about 2001 to 2010, when Jane was too frail to drive her mule into town to care for it.

In 2005, an agreement between the Leland school board and Leland Library Advocacy citizen’s group opened the high school’s new media center for public use on Monday evenings.