Growing up, I loved to read. I think I read everything in our school library, especially the elementary school library. Both of my college degrees are in education, and my favorite courses were Children’s Literature. As I began teaching school in upstate New York and in Pennsylvania, my knowledge of children’s books, authors, and illustrators grew. Then we moved to Michigan, and as the children came along, our personal family library grew and grew. We began homeschooling in 1989, and the family library grew and grew to accommodate our children’s interests and needs. 

I had a dear friend who introduced me to library sales. The first one she took me to was the Monroe County Library sale about a half hour from our house. I went from row to row to row of library shelving stacks pulling wonderful books: Landmarks, Childhood of Famous Americans, those vintage early readers, fiction, picture books, and many nonfiction books. Over 500 of them! All at four for a dollar. I brought home those books, unloaded them into the family room, and let the kids start going through them. It was quiet for the whole afternoon as my children sat and read and browsed through those wonderful books. 

Over the years, I went to many book sales and gathered more and more books for our own children and began sharing them with other families in our church on a casual basis. The collection grew to over 6,000 books, all housed in a 1,200 square foot house, no basement, and five children. There were bookcases in every room. 

One day, my husband came home from work and said, “Go look at my car.” “Why, what happened?” I asked, thinking he had had an accident. When I went to look, the car, a little Ford Festiva, was full to the top with books some person had sent home for me. Another time, an elementary school closed near us. The library was to be boxed up and taken to the dump by Two Men and a Truck. Can you imagine? The driver told the other man in the truck, “I don’t feel right about this,” so he drove instead to the local public library and asked the librarian if she wanted the books. “Yes!” she said. She began going through the books, keeping what she wanted, and putting the rest on carts near the front desk, and priced them three for a dollar. I bought hundreds! Over the years, I have seen God provide many times in unusual ways. We had committed to quality reading for our family and to share the books with others, and He provided.

In 2006, my husband was called to pastor a church on Long Island, NY. We used two moving trucks: one for our stuff and one for the books and bookcases! We were there for six years, and in that time the library grew to over 12,000 volumes. I had the entire finished basement for the library; many homeschool families began coming to borrow. We were there for six years, and my dear husband died suddenly. Because we lived in a parsonage, I had to move within a few months. My sister came to help me pack up the library, book by book, box by box. I moved back to Michigan, back into the house we still owned there. But my two older sons and their wives and my youngest son all moved with me back into the house they had grown up in. No room for books then, so they went into storage at a friend’s house for two years. I even sold off about half of them because I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to have space for a library again. Eventually, everyone moved on, took new jobs, and the house was empty, so I set up the library again for a couple of years there. 

In 2016, the only one of my sons still living near me took a job in Atlanta and asked me to come with them. They purchased a house, I sold my house in Michigan, and moved to Georgia. No room at this house for the books, so I put them in storage again. I started praying for a place to put the library, and I started asking all around the homeschool circles to see if I could find a place. The church we were attending purchased a building a mile from our house and agreed to allow me to set up the library there. What a blessing it’s been! Over the past six years, the library has grown to over 17,000 volumes with about sixty families borrowing. I love the moms and truly want to be an encouragement to them as they raise their children. I love the kids and their excitement over what they are reading. And I love my books! So much has changed in my life since my dear husband died, but the sharing of my books is one thing that has not changed. It is a happy place for me!

I continue learning as I’m involved with the Plumfield Moms podcast and the Bibioguides website. And the librarian chats I’m on are life-giving and always encouraging. I hope to keep the library going as long as I am able and as long as God provides a place for it. 

This article is part of our Librarian Notices series of library stories at The Card Catalog. You can connect with us to comment on this story or any of our other library stories on our Facebook page. Listen to more about Sandy Hall’s library and her library journey in this podcast from Plumfield Moms. You can also listen to Sandy and other library ladies share a variety of beloved books here.