The White Sulphur Springs Library Board of Trustees will be meeting at the library on Thursday, February 20th at 6 p.m.

 Anyone who wishes to address the board concerning library business is welcome to attend.

 

 

Book of the Month

 

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

 

"I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river.  I want to feel the current."

 

Despite its title, this novel is not a romance, but a portrayal of an independent, educated woman, Mamah Cheney, at odds with the restrictions of the early 20th century. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright  first meets  Mamah when her husband, Edwin, commissions Frank to design a house. Their affair becomes the stuff of headlines when they leave their families to live together.  Author Nancy Horan  puts considerable effort into recreating Frank 's  vibrant, overwhelming personality, but her primary interest is in Mamah, who pursued her intellectual interests and love for Frank at great personal cost. 

 

If you enjoy this book you may also wish to discover Nancy Horan's new book Under the Wide and Starry Sky.  This novel recounts the bewitching romance of Robert Louis Stevenson and his tempestuous wife.

 

 

The first library in White Sulphur Springs was established in the summer of 1914 with the help of a gift from Olive P. Stokes. Miss Stokes, a frequent visitor to the Old White Hotel, donated $100 to be used to purchase furniture and pay rent for two upstairs rooms in a building on Main Street. In 1915, the White Sulphur Springs Company donated the present site to be used for a library.

The first library building was erected in 1921.  Seven years later a community house was added to the facility. During World War II, the U.S.O added a back room to the building. In 1976, the local organization became a state-affiliated library under the auspices of the West Virginia Library Commission and adopted its new name -- White Sulphur Springs Public Library.

As the years went by and the library continued to grow, the original building became inadequate. In 1987, a new building was built on the same site.  This 5,000 square foot facility is still in use today.