Notes from the Key West Library

President Lucy Burdette aka Roberta Isleib, Librarian/Administrator Michael Nelson, Treasurer Tom Clements

LUCY BURDETTE: One of the organizations I have been involved with for the past number of years in Key West is the Friends of the Key West library. And I am delighted to say that this year I will be serving as the president. The Friends is an active organization which holds used book sales during the high season, along with a lecture series and a number of other events.  All of the money raised by the friends goes directly to the library to purchase things that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford, including books! 

Michael Nelson is our new library administrator and librarian and he agreed to visit with us today. He’s a huge reader and music lover and has been providing an amazing lineup of speakers for a small library.  Welcome Michael!

 It’s been such an impossible spring in every way, but I think this group of readers would be interested to hear about what the library has been able to provide even though it’s closed, and what services have been most popular?

MICHAEL NELSON: I don’t imagine it will surprise anyone that our digital content became increasingly popular as the “safer at home” mandate closed the library doors to in-person visits. We immediately put extra funding into building our eBook and eAudiobook collections. Our streaming service, Kanopy, which features independent films, world cinema, classic movies, and documentaries, also saw a marked surge in usage. Similar increases occurred with the library’s learning languages software and digital access to the New York Times and other papers and magazines. We made it possible for our patrons to register for a library card online and staff has remained available for questions and assistance via the phone, online chat, and email ever since the doors closed. It was our “more library, less public” initiative, and we tried to be as useful as possible. Like many libraries across the country, we began virtual programming, which has included multiple story times and easy crafting to a NASA Ambassador presenting a talk on the possibility of living on Mars. (Side note: I am not going).  We’ve also stocked various tax and unemployment forms on our outside shelving and continue to stock free books for patrons to take. For the last two weeks, we’ve starting allowing patrons to pickup materials placed on hold (then placed outside) at an appointed time. As I’m writing this, we’re planning to reopen in June with new safety measures in place. It’s an evolving process.

LUCY: In some ways all libraries are alike, but in others not so much. I’m thinking of how the KW library serves a diverse population ranging from snowbirds to homeless. I wonder if you could talk a bit about the special challenges of running a library in Key West.

MICHAEL: Well, we do have a library rooster. He doesn’t come in, but he does admire his reflection in the front doors on a daily basis. (Or maybe he’s just getting a little cool air seeping out from under the entrance, but I prefer to think he’s just wildly vain. The staff call him, “Red,” but I call him “Warren Beatty Bird.”) Libraries, by their nature, are welcoming places and why I love these institutions, wherever they may be, but Key West is certainly a great locale and a destination for people of all backgrounds and income-levels. It’s also a library that’s had Tennessee Williams and Shel Silverstein as patrons. Thomas McGuane wrote a book or two in the library and Jimmy Buffett hung out here for the air-conditioning in the 70’s. Judy Blume did research for her most recent novel at our library and Meg Cabot talked to a full auditorium of fifth-graders about graphic novels. And I’m being completely honest when I say that I could list another two dozen or so extraordinary writers who’ve stopped in or been long-time patrons.

LUCY: One of the special things about the Key West library is our Florida history collection. I thought you would like to hear something about that and also how you can access some of these wonderful photos.

MICHAEL: Key West has a remarkable Florida History Department. The library’s archival vault holds the original order from Commodore David Porter that formally established Key West in 1823. It also has a galley proof of To Have and Have Not with Hemingway’s notes in the margins as well as a vast collection of local historical documents from maps to diaries to photographic images. Many of these photographic images have been scanned and can be found here. Earlier this year, the photographic archive surpassed thirty million views. You can find out more about our Florida History Department at this address, including some recent visual recordings of our venerable historian, Tom Hambright, talking about various aspects of Keys history from wrecking and salvage to the cigar industry in Key West. (Note from Lucy: Tom Hambright is such a treasure--do not miss a chance to hear him talk about the history of Key West!)

LUCY: All writers I think are curious about what makes a book land on the to-be-ordered list for a library. Can you tell us how you go about making these choices?

MICHAEL: We do have a lot of resources for selecting books, but I particularly enjoy the Indiebound Next List, which spotlights recommended titles and reviews from independent booksellers from around the country. You’ll always find solid recommendations there. Publishers Weekly, of course, is an excellent resource and the starred reviews usually end up on our list to order. I’m also quite fond of the New York Times Book Review, and of course, patrons are constantly bringing in clippings from the paper and requesting titles they’ve read about. I will say, and I don’t know if it usually works or not with bigger library systems, but I do see a lot of new authors using the “purchase suggestion” option on our website and recommend their own work. Many times, it’s independently published and our primary vendor doesn’t carry it, but once in a great while, I’ve purchased it if it has some connection to the Keys.

LUCY: What have you read recently and what are you looking forward to?

MICHAEL: I just finished, “Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth” by Benjamin Taylor. Taylor's love of Roth's work and the man himself makes this slender remembrance of the legendary author a complete charmer. The book covers late-stage Roth, retiring and then dying, but Taylor's vivid portrait makes us see a man who never lost his immense intelligence and wit and talent. Taylor was lucky to be Roth's friend, and Roth was lucky to be his.

LUCY: And finally this is just a nosy question, but I wondered how you decided to become a librarian and when you knew this was your career path?

MICHAEL: I started volunteering at the public library in high school. Later, at the University of Florida, I worked in their Special Collections library as a student worker. I think that experience stayed in the back of mind and later sparked my interest in collecting books (rare and signed). After getting a Communications degree, and a little later an English degree, library school seemed like the next best step. I was lucky to get my first librarian position in Daytona Beach and a few years later, got into library management at the New Smyrna Beach branch. Like Key West, New Smyrna is a small beach town with a big cultural scene, including the Atlantic Center for the Arts, which brought in artists, authors and musicians from all over the country. Programming quickly became the most rewarding part of my job. A little over five years ago, I got the exceptional opportunity to join the staff at the Key West Library and then took over as Administrator in March of 2019. 

LUCY: Aren't we lucky to have Michael in Key West? He'll be stopping in today to look for questions. And if you'd like to become a Friend of the Key West library, all are warmly welcome!

A Tour of the Key West Cemetery by Jane Newhagen

LUCY BURDETTE: when you get to know someone in Key West, you often find you have multiple connections. And this is true for our guest today, who introduced me to my wonderful tarot reading character, Lorenzo AKA Ron, fished me into writing the newsletter for the Key West Friends of the Library, belongs as I do to the Key West Writers Guild, and answers my questions about the Key West cemetery. (And if you visit Key West, make sure you put the cemetery on your bucket list.) With Halloween coming, I thought you would love to meet Jane and get a taste of her cemetery tour! Welcome Jane!

JANE NEWHAGEN: I’m a taphophile—a person who is fascinated by cemeteries, funerals, gravestones and the like. We’re not a morbid bunch, rather we’re interested in the stories that lie behind the monuments and the individuals who lie beneath the ground.

It won’t surprise you, then, when I tell you that for fourteen years I was the Archivist at the Key West City Cemetery. I was responsible for patching together information about the graves there dating from 1847 when the cemetery was founded. Five years ago, I started the Cemetery Strolls. Held on three Saturdays during the winter season, the strolls are guided tours to significant gravesites where volunteers tell the stories of those who are buried there.

One reason I enjoyed being Archivist was because of a special plot that led to my writing three historical novels, Sand Dollar, Pieces of Eight, and Chambered Nautilus. It’s not coincidental that the first one, Sand Dollar, starts out just before the great hurricane of 1846 when the original cemetery was blown away with bodies in the trees and gravestones coming to rest halfway across the island. All three novels are based on the lives of the permanent residents of Lot 49 on 4th Avenue in the cemetery.

Yes, the cemetery streets are named just like city streets. There are eight numbered avenues and Palm Avenue. They’re crossed by Clara, Magnolia, Violet, Laurel, and Higgs Streets. The Catholic section is in the north corner and the Jewish cemetery in the east corner, but you’ll find people of all faiths and ethnicities buried side-by-side throughout the cemetery.

The gravestone most tourists want to see belongs to Pearl Roberts. Pearl’s frequent complaints of ill health led to her being written off as a hypochondriac, but Pearl was right. She died in 1979 at only 50 years of age and her memorial marker on the family mausoleum reads, “I Told You I Was Sick.” Gloria Russell’s memorial is there, too. It says, “I’m just resting my eyes.” I often say that myself, and I think of Gloria whenever I do.

Thomas Romer (1783-1891) is buried on Fourth Avenue. He was an African-Bahamian who served in the War of 1812 as a privateer. His headstone attests to his 108-year life and his standing as a “good citizen” for sixty-five years. We choose to believe that the reference is to the fact that he became a naturalized American citizen at the age of forty-three, not that he was a good citizen for sixty-five years and not so good for the rest of his life.

William Curry’s monument is the most imposing one in the cemetery. Curry (1824-1896) was a very successful businessman and became Florida’s first millionaire. His descendants live here today. Some years ago the big urn on top of the monument was pushed over by an encroaching tree. It took scaffolding and a crane to restore it to its rightful place. As you can imagine conservation and restoration of these old monuments is an ongoing job. It’s expensive, too. The Historic Florida Keys Foundation manages conservation and restoration and relies on grants and contributions from the Cemetery Strolls for funding.

Some of the statues are more expressive than others. The face of the lovely angel memorializing Mary Navarro appears to weep when climactic conditions are right. Her family was visiting New York City in 1901 and she warned her daughter Rosa not to go near the window. Rosa did and fell to her death. Mary died of a broken heart not long after. The monument shows the mother angel admonishing the child angel to behave.


Sadly, we don’t know who is buried in some of our graves. Maybe the markers were wood and deteriorated over time. Maybe the cemetery sexton was illiterate or didn’t have a sense of the importance of his records. Most of the early graves were in family lots and at the time “everybody knew” where the Curry or Lowe or Roberts lot was, so that’s what is written on the burial card. Today there are dozens of lots with those names and, without more information, it’s anybody’s guess where those individuals are located.

You can see my enthusiasm for the history of Key West and its people. It was my great pleasure to research and write my three historical novels: Sand Dollar, Pieces of Eight, and Chambered Nautilus. They’re tales of old Key West and firmly grounded in historical facts. In fact, I followed the pattern of the earliest family members as seen in their cemetery plot and fictionalized their stories. They’re available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon. I hope you’ll take a look.

I also had the privilege of writing the text for After Life ~ Images from the Key West Cemetery. It’s a visual presentation of the cemetery with photographs by Carol Tedesco and Roberta DiPiero. It’s also available from Amazon.

Are you a lover of cemeteries? Do you have a particular favorite?

Jane Newhagen was born and raised in Denver, Colorado and graduated from Brown University. She’s lived up and down the east coast and Paris, France and came to Key West in 2000. Jane received the Richard Heyman Recognition Award from the Anne McKee Artists Fund of the Florida Keys for Pieces of Eight and again for the third novel in the series, Chambered Nautilus.

Jane recently retired from working at the Key West City Cemetery after fourteen years as Archivist. There she organized and digitalized burial records. In her spare time she volunteers for Take Stock in Children, a scholarship program for gifted, needy students. She enjoys classical music, traveling, and is a voracious reader.

Lucy Takes Spanish

LUCY BURDETTE: I’ve spent a lot of years of my life in school. Even so, it’s been a long time since I had to try to learn a completely new skill, complete with homework and drills and memorization. (Not counting book deadlines as homework, or classes on the finer points of writing…which hmmm, probably should count, right?) But when the Key West library offered Spanish lessons, John and I couldn’t resist signing up. Why, you might ask? We’ve always heard that learning something new is good for the rusty synapses, but that wasn’t our chief motivation. More and more people in the US speak Spanish, for one. I wanted to be able to communicate!

And for two, there have been times when some well-placed Spanish comprehension would have come in handy in our travels. Take for example the time we were in Barcelona without a word of Spanish between us other than hola. When we wanted to buy something, we were reduced to holding out handfuls of coins and hoping the shopkeepers were honest. Then there was the day we came through customs in a small town in Cuba. I emerged from the passport line with no problems, and then waited and waited for John to show up. As it turned out, he hadn’t understood what the customs agent was asking.

“Ha viajado en África durante los últimos dos años?” the man asked (or something like that.)

“Yes,” John answered cheerfully, not wishing to be seen as an uncooperative, Ugly American. If he’d understood their question: “Have you traveled in Africa in the past two years?” he would have answered No! rather than Si! And then he wouldn’t have been pulled aside and screened by a barrage of other authorities with questions about his possible exposure to ebola…

El profesor, Edgardo

la clase

That said, we are heading into our seventh week of class and finding it quite challenging. Even though we study a little bit every day and have a wonderful teacher (Edgardo, who hails from Puerto Rico, works at the Key West library, and also happens to be an amazing poet) and even though the old rusty brain cogs are creaking as fast as they can, French words are what come to my mind when he asks a question.

Here was one of my first assignments after Edgardo was done correcting it:

Yo soy de Nueva Jersey. Juan es mon (mi) eposo (esposo) gracioso y bello. Yo soy carto (baja) (corto and largo refere to length, not height). Juan es alto. Nosotros vivemos (vivimos) en Cayo Hueso. Yo soy psicologo y escritora. Yo escribe quince novelas de misterio. (We probably won't be able to discuss the past tense but the sentence should be "Yo he escrito quince novelas de misterio) Yoda es mi gato gris. Tonka es mi perro con pelo negro y castana (castaño). Nosotro tenemos dos muchachos (hijos?)  y una nieta. 

Oh holy yikes, Batman! What did I get myself into? The good news is, since I’m taking Spanish, Hayley Snow is too! You’ll see some of that surface in the 8^th food critic mystery, coming in 2018.

How about you Reds, are you good students of foreign languages? Have you tried something else new lately, out of your comfort zone?