Welcome to Log Entries by Tracy D. Connors
Jacksonville's Old Springfield Branch Library
TEMPLE OF KNOWLEDGE AT TENTH AND SILVER
Springfield Branch Public Library, Jacksonville, Florida. The “Temple
of Knowledge” for all north Jacksonville neighborhoods at the time,
presided over by the “Priestess” Mrs. Porter, the all knowing
librarian. To step out of the hot Florida sun into the library’s cool
rescesses was pure heaven for one Florida boy.
By Tracy Daniel Connors
I'll
never forget the old Springfield Library--the Temple of Knowledge at
Tenth & Silver Streets --or Mrs. Porter, the librarian, its
"Priestess."
The Springfield Library of the Forties
was a far cry from today's suburban libraries with their "shopping
center modern" décor, computerized checkout system, and librarians
seemingly more knowledgeable about the catalog system than of knowledge
itself.
Jacksonville, Florida, my home town, was
officially renamed Jacksonville after Andrew Jackson, who served as
provisional governor of Florida for all of seven months and never even
visited the area. Before that, it was a very small community that
existed mostly on the north bank of the St. Johns River where it was
shallow enough to cross. Logically enough, the residents of the
time called it simply, “Cow Ford,” a rough English translation of the
native American term, “Wacca Pilatka,” the place of the cows crossing.
The area that would become known as Springfield, one of Jacksonville’s
oldest, and arguably most famous neighborhoods, was recognized by the
Spanish government long before Florida was even a part of the United
States. A tract of higher land about 500 acres just north of the
city’s small center, Springfield did not begin to establish itself as a
neighborhood until about 1880, when the first street car line was
built. By 1893, there were nearly one hundred substantial
residences as Springfield began to grow into Jacksonville’s premier
neighborhood. After Jacksonville’s disastrous fire of 1901 burned
most of the city’s center, the number of substantial residences in
Springfield grew even faster.
By the late
1940’s the Springfield neighborhood wasn't what it once was--even
then--to this kid who could not remember a time when he had not been
taken to the library. Formerly a prestigious neighborhood of
Jacksonville’s influential families, it was slowly giving way to For
Rent" signs as THE FAMILIES moved across the river to San
Jose.
The Springfield houses were big, solid, respectable chunks of
Southern architecture, reflecting the wide variety of values and life
styles of the families that built them. The Barnett residence on East
First Street, the Horace Drew residence on West Third Street, the
Klutho Apartments and Henry J. Klutho’s own Prairie-style house on West
Ninth Street, are present day monuments to Springfield’s rich
architectural heritage. To its everlasting credit and honor, the
Springfield Preservation and Revitalization Council has saved countless
Springfield buildings and the neighborhood’s legacy of civic pride and
spirit.
Once, the library was one of these old mansions,
substantial, but no Klutho. Now, it sat by itself on a short block
surrounded by massive oaks which jutted incongruously out of the thin,
sandy white soil. How could such weak looking sand nurture such big
trees?
As a young married couple, my parents had once lived near the library.
Now, at least once each week, they drove the vintage Model A the five
miles or so into Springfield from the north side neighborhood of North
Shore near the Trout River.
In the summer, when we arrived at the
library, the late afternoon heat would be shimmering off the sandy
parking lot and the red tile roofs nearby. What a relief to climb the
steps and be welcomed by the shade of the porch, followed by the deeper
cool of the library itself.
[At
the time, about the only public building that was “air conditioned” was
Cohen’'s (later May-Cohens) Department Store in the St. James Building
on Hemming Park. For northsiders, that required a 20-minute, five
cent ride on the 26 North Shore bus that dropped you off in Hemming
Park.]
Before air conditioning, as a Jacksonville
kid in summer to get a brief respite from the heat, you would go to the
refrigerator, ostensibly for a slug of ice water from the jug that was always
there (woe to the one who did not refill it after gulping down its life
savings contents). Deep down however, you wanted to feel the delicious
cool--even for a few seconds--when the door was opened, and the frigid
air poured invisibly out of the box, swirling deliciously around your
sun-baked legs and ankles, often showing the traumatic effects of a
bike fall or the revenge of a stubborn oak’s rough trunk before being
conquered of a summer morning.
We went "bare
foot" all summer. Shoes were put on only for church on Sunday. By the
end of summer our calluses were so tough we could walk barefoot through
the sandspur patches and rarely get stuck.
We had an
old GE refrigerator--still referred to as an "ice box"--some habits
died hard, especially when daily ice deliveries were still being made
to North Shore in mule-drawn wagons, whose precious cool blocks of ice
were covered with a sodden canvas tarp. If you were polite, the iceman
might give you a precious chip off a block to gnaw on for a few minutes
of pure pleasure. What ice didn’t go into your mouth to cut the
thirst and numb the tongue, dripped onto the tops of your feet leaving
muddy gullies through the dust and dirt. It was wonderful.
Entering the Springfield Library was like opening that ice box door in
summer--the cool washed over you when you swung the massive old paneled
oak door open--the cool and the smell. It came from the books
and the humidity of a pre- air conditioned era. While the cool bathed
your hot body, the smell entered your nose to be sucked inside to find
your Center—a kind of intellectual incense as it were, welcoming you to
the Temple of Knowledge, or what passed for one in Jacksonville in the
Forties, at the corner of Tenth and Silver Streets.
Inside, there were books, lots of books. Not simply a few, sterile
metal shelves of kaleidoscopically jacketed tomes, but shelf after
oaken shelf of books covering every wall and almost every square foot
of floor space with a muted red-green vertical patchwork of book
spines. Preoccupied knowledge "Seekers" shuffled slowly down the
aisles, the worn, but dignified oak flooring creaking softly in time to
their studied pace. Others sat in comfortable old oak library chairs at
the library's one reading table located at the back of the
building--also surrounded by shelves of books.
The
cool, the quiet, the concentrated searching, the palpable respect given
the Temple, added to the mystery of the Springfield. It was an
esoteric, awe-inspiring place for a kid who could not then read. I felt
as "religious" at the Springfield as I did at church. Even much later
on when I could read the books themselves, the wonder of it all was
still there. By then however, there was the added challenge of digging
out the information required to complete a term paper for Mrs. Mayhall,
my English teacher at Andrew Jackson High School.
If
the Springfield was a "temple," then its "priestess" was Mrs. Porter. A
widow in her 60's then, to a kid she seemed ancient. Mrs. Porter
presided over the rituals of acquiring knowledge from the "altar" to
which Seekers brought their books to be checked out or in. As the
awe inspiring “Priestess” of that Temple of Knowledge at Tenth and
Silver Streets, Mrs. Porter, who knew everything and every book that
had ever been published, issued me my first library card when I was no
more than six years old. I was impressed to the core of my being
at the power of that card--that a six-year old would be trusted on his
own recognizance with important books that held the riches of knowledge
and understanding.
I’ve been issued all kinds of
cards since then--cards that took me into secret military places, the
halls and galleries of Congress, onto bases and ships, that authorized
me to drive and to vote, but none has ever came close to the power
contained in that first library card from the Springfield Library.
I don't remember what Mrs. Porter wore, but I'll never forget what she carried.
Her "sceptre" was an Eagle pencil, with a date stamp pushed onto it
near the point. How clever, I thought, to be able to write on and to
stamp the library cards with a few brisk flourishes. It was her symbol
of quiet authority--that special pencil. She was never without it.
Checking out books, jabbing at the air to emphasize a point, or
gesturing toward distant volumes with an economical series of
flourishes and directional jabs, she orchestrated the quiet search of
Springfield Seekers.
Mrs. Porter must have known Everything. It certainly seemed that way to me.
While
moving the books from one stack to another, putting in or removing
cards, making entries, or putting them on the cart for return to the
shelves, she answered a constant stream of whispered questions from
Seekers. Quietly, warmly, authoritatively, she would recommend specific
books to meet their needs. Seekers listened carefully, respectfully,
almost in awe of her knowledge--and then followed her recommendations.
They were rarely disappointed. Travel, history, science, fiction--no
matter what the subject, she seemed to know the exact book to read.
What's more, if it was travel, she seemed to have actually been to all
those far away places. A remarkable woman.
The old Springfield Library and Mrs. Porter are gone now.
The cool mystery of the cluttered old Springfield mansion replaced by a
more modern facility. In this case ironically, the former Brentwood
Theatre, where my brother and I spent many serial-filled Saturday
afternoons watching Western shoot-em-ups. The one, and only Mrs. Porter
succeeded by a staff of library science graduates with an encyclopedic
knowledge of the Library of Congress catalog system. The "altar"
presided over by student assistants barely out of high school.
Progress? Some would call it that.
More efficient, certainly. Wide band internet connections
pipe extraneous information to us at blinding speeds.
But why do I feel such a sense of loss when using the libraries of today?
Why is that bouquet of Springfield library, like the lingering finish
of a fine wine, still with me all these years later. Perhaps it
truly was intellectual incense.
And why have the memories of Mrs. Porter and that old library stayed with me all these years?
Is it because deep down inside I question whether the “trade off” of
gaining so much information so quickly is that we have lost the ability
to discern the important difference between data and knowledge.
Is it because I wonder whether we have sacrificed truth for
timely. If so, we are by far the losers in that trade.
Somehow I cannot agree that today’s “information technician” is more
important that Mrs. Porter, the Priestess of the Temple of Knowledge at
Tenth and Silver.
© 2007 Tracy D. Connors