Book returned to Sewickley Public Library after 54 years

SEWICKLEY, Pa. — If you’ve ever lost something and found it years later, you’ll appreciate this story.

“I found a book that I took out in 1969,” Carol McIntyre told the Sewickley Public Library employee sitting at the desk when she returned a library book after 54 years.

“I should probably start at the beginning,” Carol told us when we talked with her via Zoom at her house in North Carolina.

She said when she was at Quaker Valley High School, teacher Shirley Stevens required seniors to read the epic poem, Beowulf. She checked it out on Jan. 27, 1969.

“When it was time to return the book to the library, I couldn’t find it anywhere,” Carol said.

Down Carol went to the Sewickley Public Library and paid a fine for losing the book so she could still get books from the place she loved to come.

She passed that love of the library down to her children, who also had to read Beowulf while at Quaker Valley. But not this copy. It was still missing.

Fast forward 54 years, to 2023, when Carol was cleaning out her books.

“And I came across the Beowulf book!” she exclaimed. “I just was amazed that I had it. It’s a very tiny book. It was easy to overlook all those years.”

So when Carol came back to Sewickley to visit her daughters over Thanksgiving, she hand-delivered it to the Sewickley Public Library, with one of her daughters there to record it.

“It’s been lost, and it’s been found,” she told the library clerk.

At first, “transparently, I thought it was a little silly,” Carol’s daughter, Sayward Lehman, told us. “But it’s clearly a piece of history. I’m glad I didn’t push my mom to put it in a Little Free Library.”

The history is stamped inside the back of the book with check out date upon check out date. The first one recorded is from 1923.

“How fortuitous that you would then bring this book back that was first checked out in 1923 and here it comes back in 2023,” said Carol’s other daughter, Robin Johnson.

1923 is also the year the Sewickley Public Library moved into its current building on Thorn Street. But it’s celebrating 150 years this year and is the oldest library in Allegheny County.

They don’t have many books still in circulation as old as the Beowulf book. And you won’t be able to check out the copy that Carol just returned. Richelle Klug with the Sewickley Public Library says Carol’s overdue book is going into the local history room, to preserve it for future generations.

“The fact that she wanted to bring it back speaks to the dedication of this community to this library,” said Klug, Head of Communications at Sewickley Public Library of The Quaker Valley School District.

And the library is showing its dedication to making the library accessible to all by not charging fines since last year. Otherwise, with a fine of 5 cents a day in 1969, Carol would have owed $1,000 for the overdue Beowulf book.

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