Defending Samuels Public Library: A Plea for Reason and Inclusivity

Dear Mrs. Cook:

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you regarding the unconscionable withholding of funding for Samuels Public Library, which will very likely result in its imminent closing.

Our library is the jewel of Warren County.  How can the Board of Supervisors allow a tiny group of fanatical interlopers – many of whom didn’t even own a library card – dictate how our library is managed?

Shame on the BOS for allowing the situation to devolve to the point where our beloved Library Director, Michelle Ross, felt compelled to resign.  Shame on you!  How will we ever attract accomplished, educated and enlightened applicants to fill her vacant position when the BOS allows an obtuse, misinformed and manipulative minority to control an institution which is the pride of our town.  It is heartbreaking to reflect on the disrespect, contempt and lack of support which the BOS has shown toward Ms. Ross and her earnest staff.  Shame!

My family has lived in Warren County for 40 years.  My sister was on the Board of Trustees when the library transitioned from its previous in-town location to Criser Road, where it has become a cherished hub for ALL citizens of Warren County.   I have donated countless hours to the library as a past Friends of Samuels Library board member and as a volunteer shelving books, working at community events and manning the Epilogue Bookstore.  Will any of the group of library dissidents contribute any time, effort or money towards the care and feeding of our treasured library?  Doubt it!

Everyone in the world has members of the LGBTQ+ community as dear friends and much-loved family members – whether they wish to acknowledge that or not.  A strictly heterosexual world has never existed – neither within the human species nor within the wider natural world.  To deny their existence, both within our community and within the vast literature of our culture, is to oppose reality.  Same-sex families are everywhere. Come out from under your rock, open your eyes, and join the 21st Century.

The BOS and their legal team should be embarrassed at the wording of the current MOU as submitted to the Samuels Board of Trustees.  Beyond the question of how the county will find the funding to pay library staff county wages and benefits, how will the county find volunteers to perform the myriad tasks which keep the library functioning as an active community center when the BOS seems bent on allowing a group of religious zealots to destroy our library as we have come to know and love it.  Clearly there is no longer separation of church and state within Warren County.

In closing, as a young girl taught by Ursuline nuns in the 1960’s, one of my favorite activities was walking downtown with my friends to our beautiful Ferguson Public Library where I was allowed to take out any book I desired.  When it came time to choose a confirmation name, the nuns brought my class to the much tinier Catholic library run by the Knights of Columbus to read children’s books about the lives of the saints.  I would encourage the religious activists of our community to invest the time and effort required to establish their own non-secular library and to cease their undesired meddling in our honorable Samuels Public Library.

Sincerely,

Margaret E. Thursland
Fork District
Front Royal, Virginia