In the tiny community of Grand Ronde,
OR right off Hwy.
18, few of the cars heading to
Lincoln City, Pacific City,
or the casino notice the unassug
old Grand Ronde Bank building.
It closed long ago.
It's where memories live.
Fewer people still know what replaced it
the library. The time for God.
Something that gives new meaning
to the phrase banking hours.
And I'll go open up the libraryr
and they probably don't see 80 year old
Emily Redman dutifully open the doors,
rain, snow or shine once a week. Only on
Monday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do have a flag.
Try to open by noon on your mar.
But Amelie is here long before .
I take about
3:00 to start with.
This former bank vault has
no cold cash and no heat.
Hello. I'm building a fire,
and I come early. All right,
No phone, no computer.
Amelie has replaced the bank te.
Yeah, and what was once a
depository of banknotes?
Now holds other treasures. Thoms
B Costane. And to think that gra
and Grandpa had those books as children.
Yeah, riches of books, novels,
alphabetical, The A start up bye
street and it comes around back here.
And over here and a little
bit around the other side.
Yeah, that's these horror roman,
My Romance days that was.
Look to the Mountain
Scifi and fantasy. They're
all donated. Yes, truly, truly
a library Time forgot this is.
Zane Gray, founded by the Grand
Ronde Women's Club in 1958.
There's always something to be learned.
It was once the only library ar.
It's not connected to the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde, which now
has its own library up the road.
Yes, this is the the book where
we write down the patrons names.
It's the original Spiral
notebook as far as I can tell.
About 3500 names in all.
Francis Mercier Willamina's school kids
checked out some of the first b.
Pond. I went to school with the Ponds,
Glenda Morgan. I have
the Bailey Bailey Baker.
Amelie's mom checked out books .
07/27 Bernice J Rydell.
That's my mom. Yep, that's me.
And of course Amelie.
Oh, there's where I signed in.
3365LC Elsie signed me.
And that's her handwriting.
Yeah, Elsie was the original librarian.
When she passed away, I started
coming here and being the libra.
That was 2013 and she's been
here every Monday since.
Yeah. Oh, except for one.
This was Eclipse. I closed on the eclipse
day so I could go watch the ecl.
There's no card catalog,
no radio, no TV,
and many times, yeah, no patron.
It's amazing how you can hide in
plain sight, put out an open si.
Maybe if I put out a sign free
counseling, I'd get more people.
But don't call her a lonely librarian.
You're engaged with the
world when you're reading.
And even when no one else is he,
she always has company. Yes,
look at all the free books I get to read.
I haven't read them all yet.
The fiery fingers. Oh man.
And keeping this hidden in plain sight.
Little Library open has
become Amelie's calling.
It's keeping the spirit of lear.
And on average, once a week.
Yeah, somebody. And who is
that someone to share it with?
Usually I get somebody. Couple
people every week. Yeah.
Travis Dow moved to the
area a couple of years ago.
So I drove by it going to the pt
office and going to the store.
And I was like, this is,
you know, it's an old bank
building turned into a library.
And so my curiosity was, I am a reader.
I'm a nerd. It's history.
It's good stuff. And this
time Travis brought his
sister Frankie from Dallas, OR
the Crawdads thing, they just
made a show on that on Netflix,
Eminent artists. It's from like
1964 and 83. So about every 20 years it
gets checked out. My number was 3500.
Yeah, Yeah. I'll have to look to see if
I wrote it in in your last year. Bye for
Amelie. It's what keeps her coming back.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Monday after Monday after Monda.
I haven't been replaced yet.
Oh Pooh. As library hours come to a close.
He's here for more than four hours generally,
but the first librarian,
Elsie's son, Dennis Worth, arri.
Well. He keeps the library
funded in his mom's memory.
That's partly true, I suppose.
Together, Dennis and Amelie closed the book.
On another week, we're on
our way out the door
for the little library waiting e
discovered. You got it. And off.
18, standing as a quiet legacy?
That speaks volumes.
The little library that could.
And I want to thank our amazingW
photojournalist Kurt Austin, who shot
that story. Now remember,
Amli's only open Mondays from
noon to four. There is no phone,
so you can't call her.
There's no computer,
you can't e-mail, no website.
But if you want to get a hold of her Pat,
I guess you could leave
a note at the front door.
And we have directions to the
library on our website, kgw.com.