My Favorite Library: Faxon Branch Library, by Henry Cohn

My Favorite Library 

Faxon Branch Library

Elmwood, Connecticut

Submitted by Henry Cohn

            I choose as my favorite library the Faxon branch because when my fourth grade teacher gave me Freddy the Detective to read, and I enjoyed it, I went to the Faxon Branch for more Freddies.  This is the library which allowed my love of Freddy to be nourished.

            In those days, the early 1950’s, I lived with my parents near Elmwood.  Downtown Elmwood was the working person’s section of more affluent West Hartford. Faxon served that community well.  I frequently visited the Faxon branch, and hardly ever went to the main Noah Webster library on Main Street in West Hartford.  It was closer and had what I needed.  There were times that I didn’t go to the library myself, but told my parents what I wanted to take out.  I would look forward to their return from Faxon with a book for me.

            Faxon had only a few precious Freddies—Freddy Goes to Florida, Freddy the Detective, Freddy the Politician, Freddy Plays Football, Freddy and the Men from Mars and my favorite, Freddy and the Bean Home News.  I must have read BHN at least four times back then. 

            While I remember all the wonderful times spent reading the Freddies, Faxon could also support my teen tastes. I don’t remember all the titles, but they came from the Faxon branch.

            Now I live on the other side of West Hartford from Elmwood, but I go to Faxon when I can get a book more quickly there than from the main Noah Webster library or the other West Hartford branch closer to my home.

Faxon still has a great and helpful staff.  They have searched for a variety of difficult to find items for me through the years.

The branch serves a variety of ethnic groups today as West Hartford has a much larger and more diverse population than it did in the 1950’s.  Now, in 2013, this library features a Welcome Center with books and DVD’s in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Vietnamese.  They have sessions to practice English, and occasional opportunities for their patrons to meet with local community leaders. They have a poetry writing group and adult book discussions.  And they serve the entire West Hartford community with a film and discussion series – RACE MATTERS – where my wife saw the movie Crash a number of years ago, and where she just recently attended a program on the book Elizabeth and Hazel on the Little Rock Nine.

            Sad to say, all the Freddies that I read are now gone, probably discarded.  When I heard about the Friends of Freddy in the 1990’s, my interest in reading the books returned, as well as my desire to make sure that the Faxon Branch had at least some copies.  I donated a couple of books to Faxon at that time. 

            I have entered this contest in hopes of bolstering the Freddy collection at the Faxon Branch.  I hope to benefit my old place of learning and the deserving population it serves.