Anyone who’s borrowed a book from the library has probably returned one late, by a few days or maybe a week. In 1962, someone checked out a pair of biographies about auto manufacturer, racer, and anti-semite Henry Ford, from the Richland Public Library in Washington state, and never returned them. Eventually, they fell into the hands of an unnamed good samaritan, who just returned them to the library 64 years after they were checked out, reports Automotive News.
The books in question are “Ford: The Times, The Man, The Company” by Allan Nevins and “The Legend of Henry Ford” by Keith Sward. Both were due on March 17, 1962, according to Northwest Public Broadcasting, but never made their way back. What happened next is lost to time, but the books made their way into a collection that the unnamed samaritan inherited. They found the small pouch inside the front cover containing a card showing the long passed due date on each of these books, something readers born in the 1900s might remember with a certain amount of quaint nostalgia.
Long overdue
Within its pages, one of the books contained a clue as to how they went missing in the first place, a form about how to write an essay. It’s likely that some student checked these books out to write an essay about Henry Ford back in 1962. Then the books were misplaced, lost, and forgotten until recently falling into the hands of the person who belatedly returned them. They did read the biographies themselves before returning them, though. I wonder if they covered Ford’s rampant racism, how he ate weeds, or that he owned Thomas Edison’s last breath and Abraham Lincoln’s assassination chair.
It’s not like the late fee would get any worse at this point. From Northwest Public Broadcasting:
“ We thought it was funny,” said Chris Nulph, Richland Public Library manager. “ We don’t judge when you return a book late.”
…
Those books could have wracked up $3,000 in fines, he joked.
“ Of course, we never charge late fees of that much,” Nulph said. “Generally speaking, at the time, the fee would’ve capped out at the price of the book.”
However, now, the library doesn’t charge late fees.
These books are now so old that you won’t be seeing them back in circulation. However, they joined a display celebrating the library’s 75th anniversary on May 1, according to the Tri-City Herald. That’s right, the books have been missing for most of the library’s history. At least that’s one mystery it can put back on the shelf.
