Treasure Chest Campaign for War-Torn Countries in 1945

Sandusky Library staff members Esther Moreland and Harry Meisler are seated beside one of the treasure chests of books collected in 1945, to be sent off to Europe. Miss Yvonne Fievet, then Children’s Librarian, directed the project. Miss Fievet is pictured at the far right in the picture of 1940s library staff below.

Local school children all over Sandusky collected books, and decorated the boxes that held them. The campaign to donate books from the United States to countries in Europe was a national project of the Book Committee of the Women’s Council for Postwar Europe. The purpose was to provide underprivileged children with books and pictures of the American way of life, in order to promote a better understanding of life in the U.S. Included in the boxes were blank paper, crayons, and an empty scrapbook, so that children in other countries could tell Americans about life in their nation. Books collected from Junior High students were sent to China; Madison School’s treasure chest was sent to the Philippines; and books from Madison School were sent to Holland. Items collected by students at Barker, Osborne, Saint Mary’s, Saints Peter and Paul, and Holy Angels Schools were sent to Austria. 

Before being sent to Europe, the treasure chests were on display for a week at: the Ohio Public Service Company, Chamber of Commerce, Spector’s, and the adult section of the Sandusky Library.

Pictorial Section from The Bell in 1931

Students at St. Mary’s High School in Sandusky published a journal called The Bell (now a yearbook). A copy of the May, 1931 edition is housed in the Schools Collection of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. At the top of the front page of the pictorial section of this issue is a picture of Rev. William C. Zierolf as well as a scene taken at dismissal time at the end of the school day. The faculty is pictured at the bottom of the page (below). From left to right are: Miss Evelyn Bing, Miss Lillian Fievet, Mr. Ramond Helmer and Miss Olga Gundlach.

Pictured below in a scene from the annual St. Mary’s High School play are: Paul Hemrick, Dorothy Riesterer, Eula Sheets, Charles LeClair, Elizabeth Donahue, Geraldine Mack and Kenneth Polta.

Individual pictures of members of the St. Mary’s 1931 graduating class are pictured on page 2. Several of the young ladies appear to have a hairstyle known as the “Marcel Wave,” which was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s.

Yvonne Fievet, Sandusky Businesswoman

Yvonne Fievet was born on March 8, 1891 in Fostoria, Ohio, to Pierre and Hyacinth (Desgain) Fievet, both natives of Belgium. By 1930, she lived on Central Avenue in Sandusky, Ohio, with her widowed mother and the family of her brother August Fievet. 

From 1929 to 1965, Yvonne Fievet was the owner and operator of Yvonne’s Hat and Gift Shop in Sandusky. In the early years of her business, the shop was located at 139 West Washington Street. A newspaper advertisement from the September 27, 1935 issue of the Sandusky Register, advertised “Smartest Fall Hats” for the miss and matron, with prices beginning at $1.95. In 1943, she moved her shop to 161 Columbus Avenue in downtown Sandusky.  An article in the March 7, 1951 issue of the Sandusky Register Star News reported that besides hats, Yvonne sold “a dazzling array of costume jewelry and a growing display of miniature Hollywood dolls.”  She also carried handbags, cosmetics, hosiery, aprons, and toiletries for men. Hat styles carried in the spring of 1951 featured off-the-face hats, bonnets, and sailor and chignon styles. One of the brands in Yvonne’s shop was Gage and D’Youveille Original.  

In March of 1952 Miss Fievet participated in the Dale Carnegie Course in effective speaking, leadership and training. A poem dedicated to Yvonne Fievet in the course’s handbook read:

“FeeVee”

The reason firm, the

     temperate will,

Endurance, foresight,

    strength and skill;

A perfect woman, nobly

    planned

To warn, to comfort and

   command.

On October 5, 1992, Yvonne Fievet died at the age of 101. Funeral services were held at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, and burial was at Calvary Cemetery. She was survived by three nieces, Yvonne and Lillian Fievet, and Monica Amburn. The younger Yvonne Fievet, not only shared her aunt’s first and last name, but she looked similar in appearance to her aunt. Yvonne Fievet (1909-2000) worked at the Sandusky Library for several years, and also was an accomplished musician. The younger Yvonne Fievet can be seen in the picture below; she is the last person on the right in the back.

Charging Desk at the Sandusky Library in 1941

Below is the blueprint for the wooden charging desk which served the Sandusky Library from 1941 through the early 1980’s. The desk was purchased from Gaylord Brothers in Syracuse, New York, but was customized to meet the needs of the Sandusky Library.

An article in the August 31, 1941 issue of the Sandusky Register Star News reported that new furniture for the Sandusky Library was purchased as a result of a monetary gift bequeathed to the library by Mrs. Clifford King in her will. Along with the new charging desk, new reading tables and bookshelves were also purchased. Some of the furniture that had been used in the library prior to 1941 had originally been in use when the library was still in the Masonic Temple. At the new charging desk, books were returned at the left side of the desk, and checked out at the right side of the desk. A feature of the desk was a modern filing system, which allowed employees to sort the cards according to fiction and nonfiction. A multi-functional pencil allowed library personnel to manually write down the library patron’s library card number, and a metal device held the date due stamp, which was stamped on the slip in the back of every book that was circulated. The dates had to be manually re-set every day the library was open.

Sandusky Library’s charging desk is pictured above, in 1977. During much of the lifetime of this desk, the library did not have air conditioning. Summer days could get quite warm inside the library. In the 1960’s patrons were limited to four books, and usually no more than two books on a particular topic could be charged out.

Library personnel in the photograph below (taken prior to 1941) include: Marion Neil, Dorothy Keefe, Evelynn McDowell, Yvonne Fievet, and Mary McCann. Miss McCann is seated to the right, in front of the other four librarians. Miss Fievet and Miss McCann spent many hours at the charging desk during their long tenures at the library.