By Helen McCauslin, Three Rivers Woman’s Club

In the last week of February 2021, a historic relationship that goes back to the early 1900s was renewed. The Three Rivers Public Library Board of Directors approved the Three Rivers Woman’s Club use of a room for storing and working on its archives, documents that go back to 1893.

The club with its emphasis on learning and civic involvement was an ardent supporter of the library, which until 1905 was housed in the Knights of Pythias building, now the home of the Kelsey Block Brewing Company on North Main Street. In 1901, E.B. Linsley, president of the library directors and one of the founders of the Sheffield Car Company, wrote to Mayor W.W. French requesting the City apply for funds from Andrew Carnegie to build a new library to hold the growing collection of books. Carnegie’s secretary wrote to the city in September 1902 that Mr. Carnegie would give $10,000 if Three Rivers agreed to provide $1,000 yearly to operate the library. The project was on its way.

Leading supporters of the project were the Woman’s Club and its members. One of them was Emma Linsley, wife of Mr. E. B. Linsley, and another was Sue Silliman who had written a paper on “How Shall Our Library Be Conducted.” At the February 1903 club meeting, the minutes record, “Mr. Lindsley spoke in regard to our new library building by Carnegie…Motion carried that Miss Silliman’s paper be published, with her permission.”

And their support went beyond words. According to minutes from the September 1903 meeting, they approved a donation of “$100 towards the erection of a public library…” (Fun fact: $100 in 1903 is worth $2,972.52 today according to the Department of Labor Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator)

The club had been raising money to build their own clubhouse, but when the new library opened in January 1905, they began to meet there. From the minutes of April 4, 1905, we find the WCTR members and friends met “in the pleasant lecture room of the Library to observe Pioneer Day.” In May, the club decided to talk with the Library Board about continuing to meet regularly at the library, and in June members of the club approved securing the use of the Library Auditorium for its weekly meetings for $25 per year. That arrangement continued for almost 10 years until Librarian Sue Silliman told the club the auditorium room was now needed for a Children’s Room. She had also had to limit their meeting time to 3:30 p.m. as they talked too loudly once the children came into the library after school!

The Woman’s Club came back to the library in 1980, at least to the “old Carnegie library building” as everyone called it when they saved the building from demolition and established the Carnegie Center for the Arts. But that is a story for another article.

Through the years the Woman’s Club has contributed funds many times to the Three Rivers Public Library. Most recently the club donated $1,000 to purchase a fireplace for the reading room on the first floor of the “new” library on North Main Street.

The History Committee of the club is organizing and in the process of digitizing their many historical documents. Our goal is to make these documents available in displays at the Library and in digitized versions for the Library’s Michigan History Room. Through the generosity of the First Presbyterian Church Three Rivers Centreville, we are working right now in a room in the church basement. 

Since we are working down the hall from the church’s archive room, we are able to have the expert advice of Myrna Myers on how to handle documents and newspaper clippings from the last 130 years. An added benefit has been the presence of Bennett the church cat who is careful as he snuggles up to an encased notebook of club minutes from 1900. We will miss his company when we move to the Library, but it will be a pleasure to have the two organizations together again.

Helen McCauslin is a member of the Three Rivers Woman’s Club History Committee. Questions and comments may be sent to [email protected]