Library book returned after 82 years. Note says, ‘Grandma won’t be able to pay for it anymore’

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — A library book has been returned nearly 82 years after it was borrowed from the San Antonio Public Library. It came with a letter noting that “Grandma won’t be able to pay for it anymore.”

The book is “Your Child, His Family, and Friends” by marriage and family counselor Frances Bruce Strain. It was checked out in July 1943 and returned this past June from a person in Oregon, the library said in a news release.

“After the recent death of my father, I inherited a few boxes of books he left behind,” the person wrote in a letter that was shared by the library on Instagram and signed with the initials P.A.A.G.

The book was a guide for parents on helping their children navigate personal relationships. It was checked out when the person’s father was 11 years old.

“The book must have been borrowed by my Grandmother, Maria del Socorro Aldrete Flores (Cortez),” the person wrote. “In that year, she transferred to Mexico City to work at the US Embassy. She must have taken the book with her, and some 82 years later, it ended up in my possession.”

The book had received write-ups in various newspapers at the time. The Cincinnati Enquirer described it in June 1943 as a “complete guidebook to the personal relationships of the child with his family and the outside world.” The New York Times noted a month later that Strain was a psychologist and mother of two who was “best known for her wise, sensitive, but unsentimental presentation of sex education.”

The person who returned the book wrote in the letter: “I hope there is no late fee for it because Grandma won’t be able to pay for it anymore.”

The library said in a news release that it eliminated overdue fines in 2021. The inside cover of the book was stamped with the warning that the fine for overdue books was three cents a day. Not accounting for inflation, the penalty would amount to nearly US$900.

Three cents in July 1943 amounts to 56 cents in today’s money, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Inflation Calculator. That would add up to more than $16,000.

The library noted that the book is in “good condition.” It’ll be on display in the city’s central library through August. It will then be donated to the Friends of San Antonio Public Library and sold to benefit the library.

Eight decades may seem like a long time for an overdue library book, but it’s nowhere near the record. Guinness World Records says the most overdue library book was returned to Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge, England, in 1956.

It was borrowed in 1668, some 288 years earlier. No fine was extracted.

The Associated Press