Sometime before 1947, when the Mennonite Brethren in Christ changed its name to the United Missionary Church, a certain “Mrs W J Sproule” donated a book to the “Stayner Mennonite [ie MBiC] S. S.” That was very kind of her. The book was duly processed (there is still a signout slip in the back of the book.) Nobody seems to have signed out the book, however, and eventually it passed into second hand sales, first offered for 59 cents, then 39, finally 25 cents before it was donated, for free, I expect, to the Missionary Church Historical Trust. And now we have to figure out what to do with it.

This is the fate of many books, to be followed ultimately by being burned in a cook stove (“potboilers”) or put in a blue box for a paper recycler, if it’s not in an institution. As a book lover, I hate to see this happen generally, though I have myself burned or recycled books, for my own reasons. There are always reasons, mainly being, no one wants them. The other main reason is, someone judges the book to be dangerous: pornography, subversive, heretics’ works, the Bible, Quran. Ray Bradbury’s speculative Fahrenheit 451 has never happened yet, thankfully, with all books being considered dangerous.

I remember visiting Delton Hallman when I was a student at Emmanuel Bible College. I forget why we were seeing him, though he was a brother of Holly Pannabecker, the wife of my first UMC pastor. I was astonished seeing he had a bookshelf covering a wall, full of old hardback popular novels, floor to ceiling. I have no idea what he did with them—there were many duplicates; most had their original colourful dust jackets. What happened to them?

In those days a briefly popular restaurant in Kitchener used such cheap novels as décor—just to give flavour to the atmosphere, if I may mix metaphors. I looked through a few; they were entirely uninteresting to me, and probably to most of the patrons. I doubt they had to worry people would steal them—even used bookstores would decline to buy or give store credit for them, not even the sort such stores put out on carts or racks in the street to lure customers in.

Another memory recalls how I stopped into an antique shop called the “Salvation Navy”–cute, eh?–on the booksellers street in Toronto—when they had it—and browsed through a small shelf of odd books. Items in this store were also being sold for décor. The original purpose was irrelevant. I found a worn book of sermons for 10 cents, a clear sign no one wanted the book for its content. I did not recognize the author of the sermons and it had no date of publishing. Eventually I learned the preacher was an English Puritan, John Flavel (1628-1691). In those days I was ignorant of the Puritans, and at first confused him with William Farel (1489-1565), a Swiss reformer of Geneva. I found the book was published by the Religious Tract Society in England in the 19^th century. The RTS had a habit of not putting publication dates on their books, because they frequently reprinted their stock. The sermons were long and covered just a few verses of Romans. I read them all gradually, and was edified. I valued the book much more than ten cents.

Unfortunately, by a misunderstanding, the book was lost again. It probably met the fate of unwanted books. The fire.

So what will happen to this book from the Stayner Sunday School in Simcoe County? Here’s the thing: it is a hardback copy of Theodore Roosevelt’s Fear God and Take Your Own Part (New York: George H Doran, 1916). Yes, the one-time American President (in office 1901-1909), published in wartime (the US had not yet entered the war), collecting speeches and writings promoting his “big stick” (military build up) policy. First editions of this book, with dust jacket, and signed by the author, can sell for hundreds of dollars these days, but this copy does not have any of those advantages. The covers look dirty and the hinges are broken.¹ It is a 25 cent reject.

Why would anyone think a Mennonite Sunday School would want such a book? There is a tale to imagine. There was a “Mrs W[illiam] J[ohn] Sproule” in the 1931 Canada census in Nottawasaga Township, Simcoe County, Ontario, who could fit the bill. Stayner is in Nottawasaga (now Clearview Township).² Freda was German-born, arriving in 1909, a citizen in 1919. Her family named the Salvation Army as their church.

Maybe Mrs Sproule supported the war against Germany and for the British Empire? Did she want to undermine the MBiC’s non-resistant doctrine maybe as an Orange Order member or a member of the IODE (Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire)? Maybe she had a son at the front and thought the Mennonites needed to see another side to the war? (Freda’s son was 13 in 1931, so 21 in 1939, prime age for the armed forces.) Maybe the book was donated during the second World War when half of the young men in the Canadian MBiC did not become conscientious objectors but thought something had to be done militarily about Hitler’s evil and signed up in the war machine?³ Much to speculate about.

My opinion about Theodore Roosevelt as a politician (who cares what I think?) is not very high. He was energetic in prosecuting monopolistic companies. He set up the first US forest reserves and national parks, but mainly so he and his buddies could go and shoot the big “game” there. On a “collecting” expedition in East Africa in 1909-1910 he and his friends shot over 500 large animals to return to museums in the US, plus thousands of smaller ones. As a leader of the US Navy he urged war against Spain in Cuba and the Philippines and defended making the Philippines a virtual colony. He urged the build up of weapons as a way to make peace. He manoeuvred and connived to get elected to various posts.⁴ In other words, he was a man of his time. A lot of people write American history, so the MCHT does not need this book.

So what should we do with it? Will someone give us 25 cents?

Banner: The fate of many unsold, unwanted books. Credit: April Sikorski, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

1George Doran made his money on reprints, so it maybe is not even a “first edition”.

2Another Mrs W J Sproule in Tiny Township, Simcoe County, near Midland, ON, was Church of England.

3The flyleaf carries in pencil “46/1,” which looks like a code that some second-hand booksellers used, hinting the book was acquired January 1946.

4Eg Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt