ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER
(Written to commemorate DPL’s first century)

Once upon another, very different time,
Admission to the pictures cost a silver dime;
Soda jerks in drug stores mixed up toothsome treats
While horses, mules and wagons mingled in the streets.
Then progress expanded our Land of the Free;
Philanthropy flourished by Nineteen-O-Three:
Carnegie Libraries were going up fast
And many survive from those times that have passed.

In a typical town with a courthouse and square
I lived as a child with my family there.
We hand-cranked our pleasures while those Twenties roared---
Our ice cream, Victrola, and Model T Ford.
I was tongue-tied and timid, lacking in looks,
But I had a mother who cherished good books.
She read to us often the ones I loved best---
Two volumes of verses by Edgar A. Guest.

My mother would walk with my brother and me
To visit a building where books were loaned free.
We’d climb up the steps to a structure steadfast---
A man named Carnegie had built it to last.
The outside consisted of mortar and brick;
Inside was so quiet you heard the clock tick. . .
Surrounded by shelf upon shelf full of books
And paintings by artists, in gold frames on hooks.
Small tables with chairs matched a big desk of oak,
Behind it a lady who frowned if we spoke.

I wistfully think of those days long gone by
And mystically marvel. . . How lucky was I!
A century later we’ve each changed in looks
And, though I own several, it has the most books.
It’s a hundred years old and still standing there,
On South Indiana, a block from the square,
A monument, precious, to times that have passed,
And Andrew Carnegie, who built it to last.

--Helen J. Ewoldsen        4-17-03