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Kirksville Daily Express - Kirksville, MO
  • Lasting gift: Love of library, reading lives on in legacy

  • Frmr. resident played integral role in creation of first Adair County library, memory lives on
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  • When Mary Jane Kohlenberg wrote in 1986 of the county’s first full-service public library, she was writing of the newly created, 30,000-item Adair County Public Library.
    She wrote of thousands of books, magazines and reference items that were freely available for viewing and borrowing by county residents for the first time after four attempts to pass a county ballot measure and tax levy.
    And she was writing of the birth of a legacy in the same brick library building on Baltimore Street.
    That legacy is still alive today, about a month after Kohlenberg’s passing in Pilot Grove, Mo., at the age of 91, as hundreds of thousands of books, movies and periodicals are checked out annually, access that might never have come to fruition if not for Kohlenberg and her efforts.
    Kohlenberg, who is credited with spearheading the local effort that eventually passed the creation and funding of the library in 1986, was also a mathematics instructor at what would become Truman State University. She was well aware of the university’s library and its access, but was concerned about every day county citizens, as well, said Gail Sponaugle, one of her two daughters, from Boonville
    “She realized many people in Adair County didn’t have that opportunity,” Sponaugle said. [And] I suspect that was a large part of what motivated her to get involved in the library formation effort.”
    The effort was also one of the most involved projects Sponaugle could recall her mother taking part with.
    And it was a vast project, one that spanned multiple decades and four previous failed attempts at voter approval of the library’s creation.
    The years 1902, 1948, 1967 and 1985 all saw defeats at the ballot for the library initiative.
    Voters were leery of investing in another library in an area that already had Pickler Memorial at Northeast Missouri State, the medical library at the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine and the public school library.
    The area also had a 30,000-item library, operated by the Sojourner’s Club in what would become the Adair County Historical Society building.
    That club, along with the American Association of University Women, which Kohlenberg was a member, were the primary forces pushing for the local library during the ‘80s.
    “[Kohlenberg] was the person who had a vision and she was ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work and wherever it lead she would do her best to solve the problems,” said Odessa Ofstad, a current member of the Sojourners and then-member of the AAUW. “She was able to inspire other people.”
    Ofstad also went on to help with the Friends of the Library board which still today helps support efforts like the library’s children’s programs during the summer.
    Page 2 of 3 - More than 25 years later, the library with its regular programs and expanded digital offerings like e-books seems like a long-time fixture of the community, Ofstad said.
    “It just seems like the library has been there for so long and it’s been such a wonderful benefit to the county,” she said.
    Looking back 26 years, Ofstad said she too noticed the need for a public library, geared toward the community rather than academia, even after its defeats at the ballot box.
    But it was Kohlenberg’s drive that ended with a successful effort, thanks to an organized calling list, information campaign and local events to promote library awareness.
    Kohlenberg highlights those efforts as reasons that voters eventually approved the library creation and tax levy in 1986 by a 2:1 margin in a state publication examining Missouri’s libraries.
    “I would say that the successful passage of a tax levy in Adair County after 84 years depended on No. 1 never giving up,” Kohlenberg writes in the 1986 publication.
    That persistence was evidenced in the multiple efforts it took to secure voter approval, but it was also a struggle for the Sojourners library to survive through until the county library’s creation. There were times when the group had to “pinch pennies to survive,” said Marietta Jayne, one of the Sojourners library board of directors in the ‘80s.
    “That library became more and more difficult to maintain,” Jayne said.
    And it was Kohlenberg and her love of reading that picked up the pieces and pushed for local support.
    “She really lead,” Jayne said. “She spearheaded the drive and we were thrilled to death, so happy when it was finally going to happen.”
    Kohlenberg, along with Jayne and Marjorie Roberts of the Sojourners Library board of directors, were on hand as they symbolically exchanged $1 for the group’s 30,000 library collection in 1986.
    That collection jump started the library and filled about half of its shelves when the building was constructed where it currently stands.
    And in the 26 years since, the library boasts nearly 10,000 card carrying members, a collection of 67,000 items and nearly 250,000 items checked out annually.
    Library Director Glenda Hunt said today’s services include homebound book delivery, pre-school story time and database access for genealogical research to automobile repair.
    “This is so much more,” Hunt said. “And [Kohlenberg] would be behind every bit of that.”
    While the Sojourners’ original 30,000 items have long since been retired and none still live on the library’s shelves, the organizers of the successful petition and vote effort can still feel their impact on the volumes and books today.
    Page 3 of 3 - “If the voters vote for a tax increase, they want to see the result of that and see it used efficiently,” Ofstad said. “And I think we have some folks here in several organizations that are willing to support imrpovements to our way of life. It’s about the information, and being able to better the life of the community and of the general public because of that access to information.”
    Despite the trickling effects and vastly expanded efforts, in reflecting on her life, Kohlenberg said it came down to her love of reading and love of learning.
    “Some years ago she wrote down information for us about her life [... and said] ‘The establishment of the Adair County Public Library with the help of so many people was one of my greatest joys for I was raised to love books,’” Sponaugle said. “I know she would be very pleased to realize how the library’s circulation number has grown and that it is truly serving the residents of Adair County.”
    A recent memorial donation was made to the library in Kohlenberg and her husband Gilbert’s honor. The books, “101 Tea Towels” and “Warships Inside and Out” will sit on the shelves, quietly serving as memorials to one of its founding supporters.
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