Moving Came Often for the Library, by Susan Kuehn, Minneapolis Star, August 22, 1951
On almost any summer day, especially the rainy ones. the Robbinsdale library looks like a school in session. Blond braids and crew cuts bend quietly over reading tables. Teen-age girls troop in, wearing scarves on their heads and looking for novels. A small boy comes for his first library card and can’t believe his luck when told he can keep a book one whole week. Chief of these reading sessions is Frances Pollard, a former school teacher, who’s been Robbinsdale’s librarian for 30 years.
She remembers when the library itself was nothing more than an assorted pile of books and much community interest. She also knows many of her books “are well-traveled.” The first trip they took was from their owners’ libraries. A group of townspeople, led by the late Dr. Donald G. Colp and the late Mrs. Margaret Stillman, started a library movement around the turn of the century, and everyone was asked to scour his bookshelf.
“There was a hotel on West Broadway,” recalled Miss Pollard. “I believe the books were kept there first, and the wife of the hotel owner looked after them. Then they were put in a drug store. Finally, they were moved to the town hall, but we lost too many there. Finally, we packed them up and stored them until we had a building.”
A tiny building, which was once a small bakery located between the library’s present site and the Robin movie theater, served as the first library. In 1907 the Library club was organized with approximately 20 members. The women had this small building moved to 4915 Forty-Second Avenue, Robbinsdale, stuccoed, and partitioned into two small rooms. In 1921 the library became a branch of the Hennepin County Library system and was visited by the first county bookmobile. During the same year, Mrs. Stillman persuaded Miss Pollard to become its librarian.
“After many years teaching and doing some school library work in Robbinsdale and Princeton. Minn., my health had given out,” Miss Pollard said, “but I accepted this new position.”
Afterward, construction of a new library building began on the same site. So Miss Pollard packed up all the books and took them to the school. “I have no idea of how many there were,” she said. “They had never been cataloged.” But the school rooms were to be redecorated, so the books had to go. The tiny library building was moved next to the school, and books were kept there. “I brought a little oil stove from home and we cataloged the books that winter,” Miss Pollard said.
Around 1925, the [new library] building was dedicated. It still belongs to the Library Club. Before Miss Pollard became librarian, club members served as volunteer librarians on Saturday afternoons. By 1911 it had become a leading civic organization. A souvenir booklet of Robbinsdale printed that year stated that public library, reading and rest station is “maintained under the auspices of the Ladies’ Library club, with a membership of 40.” The group, its active membership limited to 35, still exists, and its club bulletin includes a waiting list of several names. Mrs. T. P. Howard, 4100 Quail Avenue, Robbinsdale, is president.
Today the library is open every afternoon and two evenings of the week. Club rooms downstairs are used by several community groups. A New Yorker by birth, Miss Pollard came to Sauk Centre. Minn., when she was a girl. There her mother worked in a factory which later moved to Robbinsdale. After her death, Miss Pollard sold their house and now lives at the Hastings Hotel. She often spends her mornings at the nearby Minneapolis public library, filling an almost daily request for books. She also selects volumes that will be brought to Robbinsdale by the bookmobile. Except for the summer, when she has part-time help, Miss Pollard manages the library alone. And business is booming. During June and July she made out 139 new library cards. “I used to stress that children come in with clean hands,” she said, eyeing a pair of slightly grimy hands across the desk. “But they need reminders.”
