Published: November 11, 2007 12:10 am      

Friends of library receive early Christmas gift

GREENVILLE — Santa Claus has come early for the Friends of the W. Walworth Harrison Public Library.

Their early Christmas gift came in the form of a $4,000 windfall which the Friends learned about only this past Wednesday. The story, however, begins back in the 1980s.

“When I became president of the Friends in February of this year, we were looking over some of their bank statements and found a charge listed for a safe deposit box rental,” said Marcia Adams. “Nobody knew why we had a safe deposit box or who had the key.”

The group checked with Chase Bank and found the only living signer on the account was Friends member John Armstrong, but Armstrong knew nothing about the key’s whereabouts.

Adams said the Friends came to the conclusion that whoever had once had possession of the key had probably died, and the key was inadvertently tossed out by family members.

The normal charge for a bank to forcibly open a safe deposit box which has no key is $200, and the Friends debated long and hard about whether it would be worth the cost, since they did not know the contents.

“We jokingly discussed having a pool on what could be inside the box,” Adams said. “I thought it would be nothing but dust bunnies.”

In the meantime, Bruce Barkley, a Friends member, had been talking with Chase Bank officials about the situation, Adams said, “... and finally the bank graciously agreed to waive the fee.

“We had the grand opening of the box on Wednesday, and what was hilarious is that we pulled out this Certificate of Deposit for a little over $1,000,” Adams said. “I thought that would be a nice sum of money for us, but it turns out the interest from all those years makes the face value of the CD more than $4,000.”

Adams and Paul Phelan, library director, have conferred on how to best spend the money to benefit the library. “We need large-print books and audio books,” she noted. “We always give money to the children’s department, and now they’re working on programs for teens, so we’ll give to them too.”

Friends of the Library have traditionally raised money to help support various library programs .The Friends have been making plans for a book sale and quilt raffle in December, and volunteers regularly help the library staff with projects such as cleaning books, reshelving books, sponsoring authors’ visits to the library, and planning educational workshops and programs.

Membership in Friends of the Library now totals 106 persons. Yearly dues are $10, and anyone interested in becoming a member is invited to call Sylvia Rodriguez at the library, 903-457-2992, for more information.