Reflections

By Estella Hovnanian

We could hardly wait! When we saw Alice Kautz, who lived on Simon’s Road, walking down the “State Road” in her sturdy oxfords, her hair pinned under her hat we knew it was time— two o’clock, time for the library to open. But it was Stephanie Hicks Craib with her long hair and high heels that made me realize the library could be glamorous and open another world; for my mother would tell me, “She’s from New York City.”

The Grafton Free Library was established in 1945 by the Grafton Community League and opened a few days after the explosion of the first atomic bomb. The League rented one half of the Methodist Church parsonage which was located behind the church and faced the South Road. According to Granville Hicks, members of the League, “provided bookcases and other furniture, accessioned books and learned from a representative of the state library how libraries were run.” (Part of the Truth, p.232) The other half of the house was occupied by Clint, Lois, and Elsie Wagar. The parsonage had been built with lumber brought up from the Hemlocks Church when it was torn down in 1877. In 1798 a Methodist Circuit Rider held meetings in this church a mile east of the Quackenkill. [click here to continue...]

(Reprinted from the Grafton Historical Society newsletter)

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