My Wall of Books

Our library of books that take up a whole wall in our home Is the result of a life time with my reading family. My parents and sisters read when ever we had some spare time. Then I married Clyde, who came from a big family of readers. Together we raised six children who mostly took to reading like ducks to water.

During the more than fifty years of married life, we have gathered and saved books like jewels. In the seventies Clyde built an eight foot long book shelf almost ceiling high to hold the many books we thought too precious to get rid of. We read them over and over again.

Collecting books of our favorite authors made garage sales an enjoyable pastime. We watch for early Kansas school books and books written about Abraham Lincoln, Clyde’s favorite since his early years when Grandma Joy would read aloud to him from the well used book, “Stories and Yarns of the Immortal Abe”, that is a high light of our wall of books.

Other authors we love and save their books to read time and time again are Harold Bell Wright, B. M. Bower, Jackson Gregory, James Oliver Curwood, William Allen White and Peter B. Klyne. My mother must have been reading Klyne's book, "The Enchanted Hill" when she was pregnant with me in 1924, as she named me Gail Lee after the heroine, Gail and the hero, Lee. How could I not become a writer after that honor.

The collection of Margaret Hill McCarter books began with the book “The Price of the Prairie.” that my mother-in-law gave her husband in 1915. These books led me to research this author's life and finally performing at elementary schools and clubs in my community as Margaret.

We have many books about Will Rogers, Charles Lindbergh, oil fields, old Model A cars, Norman Rockwell, Frankoma Pottery and Currier and Ives.

One long shelf contains books on gardening, fences, composting, flowers, insects, trees and some “Foxfire” books about the mountaineer people of the Appalachian Mountain. I have added books about learning to survive by eating from the wilds. Including many by Euell Gibbons. We take pleasure from hunting the countryside for poke, morel mushrooms and paw paws to bring home and savor a bit of nature’s bounty.

Our book collecting has outgrown our original wall of books, creating the need for bookshelves in the master bedroom, for mostly western, mysteries, intrigue and historical paperbacks, again we save series of books by our favorites authors. Dick Francis, Jean Auel, Tony Hillerman, James Herriot and Sandra Detrixhe of KAC writing as Cassandra Austin are just a few. Two long shelves on the back porch are for the recipe books. These are used for new and old ideas for cooking meals from the produce we grow in our own garden each year. But I also use them in my research for stories.

Book shelves are currently taking shape all around in my new writing room to shelter books containing research for all kind of articles I plan on writing; for our family history memoirs and extensive files of everything our family is interested in. I have added notebooks where I am saving written material by others in our family. My Mother’s stories she wrote in the early twenties,our daughter, Shannon’s “Martin News"; my sister, Carol’s “Living on the Bay” her monthly newsletter from Seadrift, Texas and our daughter, Cindy’s “Birdwoman programs” that need a special shelf.

My new shelves are one-of-a-kind and are being made by our son, Owen. He is a cabinet maker and the ends of these book shelves are made from narrow strips of scrap cherry, birch, walnut, pine and poplar wood pieced together. They make my writing room as unique as my writing style.

Photo: A friend brought me this 'Rosie the Riviter' t-shirt to go with our Norman Rockwell books after hearing me read this story.

Story ID:	259
Written by:	Gail Lee Martin (bio, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Kansas Authors Club
Story type:	Family History
Location:	El Dorado Kansas USA
Year:	2006
Person:	Gail Martin