A Donation to Montpelier's Public Library Repays a Favor From 95 Years Before

Montpelier’s public library suffered $1 million in flood damage last July, so a $1,087 donation might seem like a drop in the bucket. Yet there was something touching about the recent contribution, Kellogg-Hubbard Library executive director Dan Groberg said: It reciprocated a gesture of goodwill that Montpelier library officials had made under similar circumstances — nearly a century ago.

Following the Great Flood of 1927, trustees at Kellogg-Hubbard sent their smaller counterpart, the Waterbury Public Library, $100 to help replace lost furnishings. The Waterbury librarian, identified as “Mrs. Bullock” in a 1929 Waterbury Record article, used the cash to purchase six Windsor chairs for the reading room and two reading lamps, “which add[ed] greatly” to the space.

The generations-old donation may have been lost to time if not for its brief mention in the newspaper. But a modern-day Waterbury library commissioner recently discovered the old article, just as the booster group Friends of the Waterbury Public Library was organizing its own campaign to unwittingly return the favor. From August through December, the group directed donations gleaned through its used book sale to help the Montpelier library.

“It’s such a meaningful gesture to us,” Groberg said.

The Montpelier library, which serves six towns and has the highest circulation of any public library in the state, certainly can use the money. Its basement took on more than seven feet of water during July’s flood, which destroyed more than 10,000 books and damaged mechanical systems.

Within eight days, librarians with headlamps and flashlights were retrieving books from the aboveground stacks and bringing them to patrons curbside. The library building reopened to the public in October.

But the recovery isn’t complete. The elevator doesn’t work, and the cost of repairs has far exceeded what the library’s flood insurance covered. Additionally, the 10,000 ruined books were part of an ongoing book sale that typically raises $30,000 a year.

Those more pressing needs mean Groberg won’t be using the cash for Windsor chairs or reading lamps. Instead, the funds will help make the total bill just a little less daunting.

Correction, February 3, 2024: Due to incorrect information provided to Seven Days, a previous version of this story included incorrect information about the impetus for the recent donation.

The original print version of this article was headlined “Recirculated Favor”