Wherefore Art Thou, Emajean?

Wherefore Art Thou, Emajean?

A Friends of the Library Mystery

Part IV

(To Review, Part I)

(To Review, Part II)

(To Review, Part III)

Scrutinizing the photo of the man in baggy pants for clues, the researcher knew she’d have to put it aside for now until she could talk with someone more familiar with the time frame in which the photo was made. She returned to the index. Ah! Emajean Mahoney was also on page 52! She had overlooked the second entry earlier when she got distracted by the photo of the man she found.

Turning to page 52, she had to gingerly pull the pages apart. Obviously the annual had been damp at some point and with the glossy paper, some sticking had occurred. When she finally got the page open she gazed upon a photo of Emajean Mahoney.  It was a standard graduation photo with cap and gown. The woman portrayed had the look that many sitting for graduation photos bear – a desire to just get it over with. Still, some of the personality showed through. She sat leaning forward, not slumped, but perhaps trying to hurry the photographer along. 

The researcher took a quick look at the rest of the page. Of the twelve photos, seven were women. Six of those said “Registered Nurse” and one said “Bachelor of Philosophy.” Of the five men, there were two Certificates in Medicine, two Doctors of Jurisprudence, and one Bachelor of Arts.

The researcher smacked her forehead. I was in such a hurry to get to the bottom of these mystery photos, I didn’t even look at the year! She flipped to the front page of the book and there it was. The Loyolan, 1933. She sat back and thought for a minute. Wow! All those women with higher educations! Now, how best to proceed?

Looking at the photo page again, she saw that the clues to Emajean Mahoney’s heirs were plain in the annotation.

Her name was followed by

Entered from Jackson High School.

Jackson, Michigan

Okay, two prongs of attack. The name and the location. I can start with a location search here at home, but for the name, I need access to ancestry.com.   She started gathering everything up to get ready to go to the library. She loved having her tax dollars  work for her providing access to the ancestry.com database.  She had had it at home for a while, but it was expensive.  Unlike other databases though, ancestry was only available at the library itself.  She picked up the Loyolan to take with her and a cascade of photos fell out. Most were the kind that everyone takes at graduation – friends together posing, graduate poses with family member . . . but one was almost a bookmark, and captured the researcher’s attention immediately.

What a beautiful baby! she thought.

Children's & Young Adult Mini Sale

Once again, the Friends of Reston Regional Library will hold our popular Children's & Young Adult Mini Used Book Sale. We established this sale due to MANY requests by buyers who attended our huge semi-annual sale. They wanted something smaller and more friendly. This has proven to be just what the doctor ordered and also includes teacher materials. Because our volunteers work so hard to sort out the good stuff for this sale, we do NOT offer children's books in the Semi-Annual sales in September or April.

Because it is a smaller sale, and in order to keep it a friendlier sale, we have established some guidelines that are different than the semi-annual sale.

1.  NO SCANNERS
2.  Limit on number of books per household in the first few hours on Saturday.

We also have a further request. Although this is a friendlier sale for families, it doesn't mean that it's a free-for-all for the children who come with you. Please keep an eye on your children and instruct them to treat the books respectfully.  If you don't intend to purchase the book your child is handling, please leave it in a condition that someone else will be interested in doing so.

So mark your calendars:

Children's & Young Adult Book Sale

August 21 & 22

Reston Regional Library

Sat: 10-4

Sun: 1-4

Wherefore Art Thou, Emajean?

Wherefore Art Thou, Emajean?

A Friends of the Library Mystery

Part III

Several days passed before the researcher could return to the mystery of the photo and book. During that time some part of her brain that was not required for her day job was pondering the next step. The idea of tracking down every person in the annual was onerous, and probably fruitless. The annual was from the Class of 1933. Figuring an average age of 22 for graduates, any survivors were around 99 years old -- not likely to be a productive use of her time and energy. Maybe the note held more clues than were obvious...

That evening, after a wonderfully satisfying dinner of Thai food from the new restaurant she'd read about in the paper, the researcher was motivated to tackle the mystery once more. Before she did though, she went to the basement to retrieve a light table. This was when she was glad of her pack rat tendencies. You never knew when something would come in handy.

She set out all of the materials, plugged in the light table, and slipped on her gloves. Using tweezers to lay the typed note on the table, she mentally crossed her fingers as she flipped on the light. It was a white light, shining through the old parchment. There! She could see faint indentations of letters from the original typewriter. Flipping the off switch for the light table, she turned to the scanner. Its light was far brighter and might reveal more.

She placed the scrap on the scanner and waited for it to go through its warmup. When it signaled ready, she pressed the button. She only wanted to give the item one pass, as the intense light was very hard on old ink.

When the image flashed up on the computer monitor, she felt her stomach tickling with an adrenalin boost. She could just make out the name.

Mahoney! The researcher had to quell her excitement as she turned to the index of the old volume. Under "M" there were TWO Mahoneys listed: Eugene and Emajean.

She sat back and thought for a minute. It has to be Emajean. No one would send an invitation to a man with the address "Maw".  And, this was a nursing program, so perhaps the blessed duties referred to later in the note means her nursing duties.

Emajean was listed as appearing on page 123. The researcher turned to that page and sat back in disbelief. The page was missing! But firmly tucked into the place where the page would have attached was another photo. Far from providing answers or clues, this one was full of its own questions.

The researcher put everything away and went to bed.