Repair My Book

Preserving knowledge, memories, and history

1241 Carpenter Street, Studio 319 Philadelphia, Pa 19147 USA

Repair my book is a blog about repairing and restoring books using old world craftsmanship, one book at a time.   it tells a short story about each book, it's history if know, why it needs restoration, and what was done to preserve the book. 

The Time Capsule Dictionary

November 01, 2015  /  David Donahue

Page 539 Preominate - Present

"Mildred took me on a DC-4 American Airlines plane and Virgie lent me $30.00 for the trip.  I went to NY City on Feb 2nd, '47. Left Tulsa Okla at 5:10 p.m. and onto NYC at 12:05 a.m.  Left by car on Sat. 8th at 10:30 and arrived at Wash. DC at about 8 p.m., stayed until Tuesday, Feb 11th at 4:30 p.m., got to Okla City at 10:30 p.m."

From the dictionary-turned-journal of Ester LaRue Crabtree.

The handwritten words are a story picture frame around the dry definitions of a standard dictionary.   Every page has a snippet of the life around Ester Crabtree in the 1940's. 

"Daddy working on Bordeson's well. Sept 11th, children at school. A.M Majorie and Betty out afternoons ( heat).

Occasionally the entries pinpoint her exact location. "Ester La Rue Crabtreet, 908 S. 2nd Street, Arkansas City, Kansas, June 9th, 52 (wed.)  Washed missionary clothes, mended diapers and blanket, plan to iron tomorrow."

"guy very sick with quinsy and was operated on Wed. Feb. 23rd. I went out that eve and spent the nite returning Thurs.”

I guess the question we can't answer is why did she use the margins of a dictionary for her journal?  Was she too poor to own a regular journal, was this her main go-to book that she carried with her for entertainment and knowledge?   Did she ever suspect the book would  survive 70 more years and be read by later generations?  Would she care that we are sharing her life?  Would that make her happy?

We restore a lot of books each year, but this one is special.  It came to us in horrible condition.  It had been previously and improperly repaired, perhaps as early as the 1960s.  The pages were falling out and most were torn in places, the Scotch tape holding the covers together. 

Madeline spent two full days just doing paper repairs with archival heat set tissue, but some of that time she was just reading it too.   Another half day sewing the text block back together.  New cover boards and a new binding.   We were so deep into this job that I had underquoted a little extra work was not going to matter one bit, so we made an archival storage box for this gem of a book and we sent it back in time for Christmas, but I think the real present was our chance to read this amazing dictionary turned journal. 

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