SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Library books have been returned almost 82 years after being borrowed from the San Antonio Public Library. I got a letter saying, “Grandma can’t pay that anymore.”
The book is “Your Children, His Family, Friends” by Marriage and Family Counselor Francis Bruce Strain. It was checked out in July 1943 and returned from an Oregonian this June, the library said in a news release.
“After my dad died recently, I inherited several boxes of books he left behind,” the person wrote in a letter that the library shared on Instagram and signed with initial PAAG.
This book was a guide for parents to help children navigate personal relationships. The person’s father was checked out when he was 11 years old.
“This book must have been borrowed by my grandmother Maria del Socolo Aldreto Flores (Cortez).” “That year she moved to Mexico City and worked at the US Embassy. She must have had a book with her. About 82 years later, it became my property.”
This book was written in various newspapers at the time. The Cincinnati Enquiler described it in June 1943 as “a complete guidebook on the personal relationship between children and the family and the outside world.” The New York Times said a month later that the stock is a psychologist and “best known for her wise and sensitive, yet sentimental presentations in sex education.”
The person who returned the book said, “I hope there’s no postponement fee for it, as Grandma can’t pay it anymore.”
The library said in a news release it eliminated expired fines in 2021. The inside cover of the book was engraved with a warning that an expired book would be fined three cents a day. The penalty is almost $900 because it doesn’t take into account inflation.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, three cents in July 1943 would be 56 cents in today’s money. That would cost over $16,000.
The library noted that the book was in “good condition.” It will be on display at the city’s central library until August. It is then donated to a friend at the San Antonio Public Library and sold to benefit the library.
80 years may seem like a long time for an expired library book, but it’s not near the record. According to the Guinness World Records, the most postponed library book was returned to Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge University, England in 1956.
It was rented in 1668 about 288 years ago. No fines were extracted.
