Book checked out for 60 years comes back to library

Staff photo by Gordon Chibroski

William Vassily explains how "The Baby Whale, Sharp Ears" grew so overdue as Portland Public Library chief Stephen J. Podgajny listens and laughs.

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Thousands of days ago, 9-year-old William Vassily went to the Portland Public Library and took out a book about the adventures of a baby whale.

He read the book and enjoyed it. Then his family moved from Portland to New York, he grew up, went to college, got married and had children, became an insurance executive and retired.

Finally, while on a trip to Portland this week to attend a conference of Masons, Vassily stopped by the library to return "The Baby Whale, Sharp Ears" - more than 60 years late.

The small, red-covered book still contains the stamped date on which it was due: June 7, 1946. Vassily, now 69, calculated it was exactly 22,008 days late, counting leap years over the intervening decades. He multiplied that number by the fine in place at the time he was a boy - 2 cents per day - and got $440.16, the amount of the check he presented to the library on Friday.

Vassily, a resident of Liverpool, N.Y., said it made him happy "to give something back to the city of Portland that gave so much to me when I was a child."

At a small ceremony in the children's section of the main library on Congress Street, library director Stephen Podgajny thanked Vassily for his donation, which he said he considered "an expression of affection" by Vassily for the library and Portland.

The money will help pay for a new $8.5 million renovation of the library - including improvements to the children's section - that are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2009, Podgajny said. A $4.5 million capital campaign is under way to raise the remaining funds needed.

Vassily didn't really owe the amount he paid. Although fines for late children's books today have climbed to 10 cents per day, they are capped at $10 per item.

But Vassily said he hopes news of his paying a six-decade-old late fee will entice children to come to the library and discover the joys of reading.

In particular, he'd like children to be able to read the book he returned about a baby sperm whale. The book, written by John Y. Beaty and published in 1938, is out of print.

Vassily described it as a "delightful" tale filled with adventure and lots of information about whales, which have acute hearing, and lessons for children about listening to their parents - but also on the value of striking out on their own.

When Vassily borrowed the book in 1946, the library was in the old Baxter Library building on Congress Street. Vassily, who was born in Portland, lived in Bayside, on Parris Street. He loved to roam around town and visited the library faithfully once a week.

When his family left Portland in 1946, the book moved with them. After he grew up, his mother kept his children's books, and Vassily borrowed the story of the baby whale from her to read to his own two sons.

Then he forgot about it until 1994, when he found the book among his parents' possessions after they died.

Vassily said he began planning then to return it to the library, but didn't get the opportunity until now.

The book, its pages yellowed but the illustrations by Helene Carter still vivid with color, was on display at the library Friday, along with Vassily's blue paper library card, which expired in 1947.

The book likely will be put back in circulation, at least for a while, said Mary Peverada, head of youth services for the library. "There's always an interest in books about marine life, especially being near the sea," she said.

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