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.