Dewey (29 page)

My moments with Dewey were more intimate. The staff had cleaned out his bowls and donated his food while I was away, but I had to give away his toys. I had to clean out his shelf: the Vaseline for his hairballs, the brush, the red skein of yarn he had played with all his life. I had to park my car and walk to the library every morning without Dewey waving at me from the front door. When the staff returned to the library after visiting Dewey for the last time, the space heater he had lain in front of every day wasn’t working. Dewey had been lying in front of it that very morning, and it had been working fine. It was as if his death had taken away its reason to heat. Can a malfunctioning piece of equipment break your heart? It was six weeks before I could even think about having that heater repaired.

I had Dewey cremated with one of his favorite toys, Marty Mouse, so he wouldn’t be alone. The crematorium offered a mahogany box and bronze plaque, no charge, but it didn’t seem right to display him. Dewey came back to his library in a plain plastic container inside a blue velvet bag. I put the container on a shelf in my office and went back to work.

A week after his memorial service, I came out of my office a half hour before the library opened, long before any patrons arrived, and told Kay, “It’s time.”

It was December, another brutally cold Iowa morning. Just like the first morning, and so many in between. It was close to the shortest day of the year, and the sun wasn’t yet up. The sky was still deep blue, almost purple, and there was no traffic on the roads. The only sound was the cold wind that had come all the way from the Canadian plains, whipping down the streets and out over the barren cornfields.

We moved some rocks in the little garden out front of the library, looking for a place where the ground wasn’t completely frozen. But the whole earth was frosted, and it took a while for Kay to dig the hole. The sun was peeking over the buildings on the far side of the parking lot, throwing the first shadows, by the time I placed the remains of my friend in the ground and said simply, “You’re always with us, Dewey. This is your home.” Then Kay dropped in the first shovelful of dirt, burying Dewey’s ashes forever outside the window of the children’s library, at the foot of the beautiful statue of a mother reading a book to her child. Mom’s statue. As Kay moved the stones back over Dewey’s final resting place, I looked up and saw the rest of the library staff in the window, silently watching us.

Epilogue

Last Thoughts from Iowa

N
ot much has changed in northwest Iowa since Dewey died. With ethanol being the next big thing, more corn is in the ground than ever before, but there aren’t more workers to grow it, just better technology and more machines. And, of course, more land.

In Spencer, the hospital added its first plastic surgeon. Cleber Meyer, now eighty, was voted out of office and went back to his gas station. The new mayor is the husband of Kim Petersen, the library secretary, but he’s no more a reader than Cleber was. The Eaton plant on the edge of town, which makes machine parts, moved a shift to Juárez, Mexico. One hundred and twenty jobs lost. But Spencer will survive. We always do.

The library rolls on, cat-free for the first time since Ronald Reagan was president. After Dewey’s death, we had almost a hundred offers for new cats. We had offers from as far away as Texas, transportation included. The cats were cute, and most had touching survival stories, but there was no enthusiasm to take one. The library board wisely put a two-year moratorium on cats in the library. They needed time, they said, to think through the issues. I had done all the thinking I needed. You can’t bring back the past.

But Dewey’s memory will live on, I feel confident of that. Maybe at the library, where his portrait hangs beside the front door above a bronze plaque that tells his story, a gift from one of Dewey’s many friends. Maybe in the children who knew him, who will talk about him in decades to come with their own children and grandchildren. Maybe in this book. After all, that’s why I’m writing it. For Dewey.

Back in 2000, when Grand Avenue made the National Registry, Spencer commissioned a public art installation to serve as both a statement about our values and an entry point to our historic downtown. Two Chicago-area ceramic tile mosaic artists, Nina Smoot-Cain and John Pitman Weber, spent a year in the area, talking with us, studying our history, and observing our way of life. More than 570 residents, from young children to grandparents, consulted with the artists. The result is a mosaic sculpture called
The Gathering: Of Time, of Land, of Many Hands.

The Gathering
is composed of four decorative pillars and three pictorial walls. The south wall is called “The Story of the Land.” It is a farm scene featuring corn and pigs; a woman hanging quilts on a clothesline; and a train. The north wall is “The Story of Outdoor Recreation.” It focuses on East and West Lynch parks, our main municipal recreation areas; the fairgrounds on the northwest edge of town; and the lakes. The west wall is “The Story of Spencer.” It shows three generations gathering at grandma’s house; the town battling the fire; and a woman making a pot, a metaphor for shaping the future. Just slightly to the left of center, in the upper half of the scene, is an orange cat sitting on the open pages of a book. The image is based on artwork submitted by a child.

The story of Spencer. Dewey is a part of it, then, now, and forever. He will live longest, I know, in the collective memory of a town that never forgets where it’s been, even as it looks ahead for where it’s going.

I told Jodi when Dewey was fourteen, “I don’t know if I’ll want to keep working at the library after Dewey’s gone.” It was just a premonition, but now I understand what I meant. For as long as I can remember, when I pulled up every morning the library was alive: with hope, with love, with Dewey waving at me from the front door. Now it’s a dead building again. I feel the chill in my bones, even in the summer. Some mornings, I don’t want to bother. But then I turn on the lights, and the library flickers to life. The staff files in. The patrons follow: the middle-aged for books, the businessmen for magazines, the teenagers for computers, the children for stories, the elderly for support. The library is alive, and once again I have the best job on earth, at least until I get ready to leave in the evening and there’s nobody begging for one more game of hide-and-seek.

A year after Dewey’s death, my health finally caught up with me. It was time, I knew, to move on with my life. The library was different without Dewey, and I didn’t want my days to end that way: empty, quiet, occasionally lonely. When I saw the book cart go past, the one Dewey used to ride on, it broke my heart. I missed him that much, and not just once in a while, but every day. I decided to retire. It was time. More than 125 people attended my retirement party, including many from out of town I hadn’t spoken with in years. Dad read one of his poems; my grandkids sat with me to greet well-wishers; two articles ran in the
Spencer Daily Reporter
thanking me for twenty-five years of service. Like Dewey, I was lucky. I got to leave on my own terms.

Find your place. Be happy with what you have. Treat everyone well. Live a good life. It isn’t about material things; it’s about love. And you can never anticipate love.

I learned those things from Dewey, of course, but as always, those answers seem too easy. All answers, except that I loved Dewey with all my heart and he loved me in the same way, seem too easy. But let me try.

When I was three years old, Dad owned a John Deere tractor. The tractor had a cultivator on the front, which is a long row of shovel-like blades, six on each side. The blades are raised a few inches off the dirt; you drive the handle forward to put them in the ground, where they chop into the soil, tossing fresh dirt against the corn rows. I was playing in the mud by the front wheel of that tractor one day when Mom’s brother came out after lunch, threw the clutch, and started driving. Dad saw what happened and started running, but Mom’s brother couldn’t hear him. The wheel knocked me down and shoved me into the blades. I was pushed along by the blades, passed from one to the other, until Mom’s brother turned the wheel and the inside blade tossed me through the middle chute and left me lying facedown behind the tractor. Dad scooped me up in one motion and ran me back to the porch. He looked me over in amazement, then held me in his arms for the rest of the day, rocking back and forth in our old rocking chair, crying on my shoulder and telling me, “You’re all right, you’re all right, everything is all right.”

Eventually I looked at him and said, “I cut my finger.” I showed him the blood. I was bruised, but otherwise, that tiny cut was the only mark.

That’s life. We all go through the tractor blades every now and then. We all get bruised, and we all get cut. Sometimes the blades cut deep. The lucky ones come through with a few scratches, a little blood, but even that isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing is having someone there to scoop you up, to hold you tight, and to tell you everything is all right.

For years, I thought I had done that for Dewey. I thought that was my story to tell. And I had done that. When Dewey was hurt, cold, and crying, I was there. I held him. I made sure everything was all right.

But that’s only a sliver of the truth. The real truth is that for all those years, on the hard days, the good days, and all the unremembered days that make up the pages of the real book of our lives, Dewey was holding me.

He’s still holding me now. So thank you, Dewey. Thank you. Wherever you are.

Acknowledgments

T
o my agent, Peter McGuigan, for contacting me and believing there was a story to be told about Dewey’s life. Thank you, Peter, Hannah Gordon Brown, and everyone at Foundry Literary who worked so tirelessly to make this book bigger than I ever imagined.

To Bret Witter, who not only found my voice, but also became a friend and confidant through this process. Thank you, Bret, for making the book so well written. We were passionate about quality, and I think we achieved it.

To Karen Kosztolnyik, Jamie Raab, and Celia Johnson at Grand Central Publishing for fighting for the book even though they saw only a forty-five-page proposal. They believed in the story before it was even written. Thank you to Matthew Ballast, Harvey-Jane Kowal, Christine Valentine, and everyone at Grand Central: there would be no book without all of you.

To Dick Montgomery for being my lawyer and friend through all the legal “stuff,” and to his wife, Mary Jean, for all her support.

To the current and former Spencer Library staff who supported this project, sat through interviews, believed in me, and cared for Dewey over the years, including Jean Hollis Clark, Kay Larson, Joy DeWall, Sharon Joy, Audrey Wheeler, Cynthia Behrends, Paula Brown, Donna Stanford, Tammi Herbold, Jann Arends, Mary Jo Wingrove, Doris Armstrong, Kari Palm, Sheryl Rose, and Jackie Webster.

To all the other folks who agreed to be interviewed for this book and filled in my memory gaps, including Bob Rose, Kirby Schmidt, Mike Baehr, Jack Manders, Cathy Greiner, Esther Connell, Judy Johnson (both of you!), Marcie Muckey, Pat Jones, Dr. James Esterly, Verlyn Jipson, and Jodi Carlson. And to Louisville Metro Transcription, for transcribing those hundreds of hours of interviews.

To the board members who were in place when the decision was made to adopt Dewey, including Jack Manders, Mike Baehr, Mary Houston, Esther Connell, Bernie Keninger, JoAnn Lawson, Gail Peterson, Lee Lookingbill, and Grace Rindsig. They made a quick decision that would affect the library for years. I always had their full support; they gave me wings to fly.

To the current board members who gave me permission to write this book (on my own time), including Cathy Greiner, Esther Connell, Jim Morony, Sue Hitchcock, Roger Littlefield, Wayne Koppen, and Amanda Hoffman.

To the Board of the Friends Group who were always there when I needed them, especially Sandy Fleck, Marcie Muckey, and Trudy Elbert.

To my family, who helped me with the book and supported me through the process: Verlyn Jipson; Jodi and Scott Carlson; brother Doug (who edited film of Dewey), Merrillee, Verlyn, James, and Merrill Jipson; brother Mike and Monica Jipson, and daughter, Natalie DeHaven; sister Val and Don Bonney, Andrea, Josh, and Lindsay; and my niece MacKenzie Dunn. To my brothers David and Steve, whose lives were rich but much too short. To my mom and grandma Stephenson, who were strong role models for my life. And, most of all, to my delightful twin grandchildren, who make me laugh when the stress is too much: Hannah and Nathan Carlson.

To my uncle, Duane Jipson, who read everything he could get his hands on (including the encyclopedia) until his death at age ninety-four. His example of love, kindness, gentility, and education touched everyone, and especially me.

To Jim Fanning, former manager of the Montreal Expos baseball team and lifelong friend, for his support during the lean times and for believing that I could accomplish anything.

To Dr. Ron Kolegraff, friend and surgeon, for understanding my emotional needs when no one else could see it or discuss it.

To Treva Johnson, for helping me understand the needs of the disabled in the library long before the ADA Act was passed and for being my colleague on the Spencer ADA Council since 1991.

To Dewey fans, both near and far, for the thousands of letters, e-mails, gifts, and personal visits to see Dewey over the years, especially Harry and Rita Fein, from New York (who remembered every year for Christmas), Doreen Walker (his first British pen pal), Phyllis Lahti (founder of the Library Cat Society), and Gary Roma (filmmaker and comedian), who all believed in Dewey’s magic before he was famous.

To the city of Spencer staff and council who stood up for me and supported the library over the years, especially city council member David Scott, who volunteered his time as Board of the Friends attorney for over twenty-five years and went to bat for me many times. And to Bob Fagen, current city manager, who treated me with respect and understood the significance of this book for Spencer.