3,000-Book Library : Self-Taught Man Shares the Ideas That Formed Him

Harvey Sturgill was told at an early age that if he wanted an education, he would have to teach himself.

Thousands of books and several hitchhiking jaunts later, he’s still learning.

“People have an attitude that after attending school and receiving a piece of paper, that their learning is somehow over,” Sturgill says. “I never feel I am above the people I meet and, therefore, always have the opportunity to be a student and learn from each person.”

In Sturgill’s home is a library used by children and adults in the area. It contains nearly 3,000 books on topics ranging from anthropology to zoology.

Childhood Illnesses

Sturgill’s love for reading started during a sickly childhood that kept him from the classroom for extended periods.

At age 10, he remembers, a doctor told him that if he ever were to have an education, he should not only learn to read but learn to “love to read.”

“Read anything you can get your hands on,” the physician said. “Even if it’s comic books, just read.”

Sturgill, 38, supports himself through woodcraft. He specializes in children’s toys.

He also likes to travel. His travels have included spur-of-the moment adventures to Alaska--twice--the Gulf of Mexico, California and Washington, D.C. All of the trips were made by thumbing it.

“I woke up one morning with the thought that I had never seen Lindbergh’s plane,” he says. “I hitchhiked to the capital and spent two weeks touring the Smithsonian Institution. Another time it came to me that I would like to carve my initials on the Alaskan pipeline, so I headed for Fairbanks.”

Sturgill always returns to Eolia.

“My home is here, my roots,” he says. “There is an unexplainable security when you have a place to call your own, and you have a certain recognition around the community. People know you and what you stand for.

“This is the warmest area I have ever been, here in Appalachia. I’m sure if my house burned to the ground tonight, there would be 20 people invite me into their homes. But the main thing is, I would build again, right here, because this is my home.”

The roof of Sturgill’s home, he says, “resembles a Pizza Hut design, due to the loft section of the house.

“The windows all come from old junk cars, just any shape. When I want one, I just cut out a hole the shape of the window . . . and I put it in.”

Expanding Space

When the house was built, it had just one front room. But over the years, Sturgill has added the library, a guest room filled with toys hidden behind a sliding wall of books, and a workshop.

When Sturgill built his home, he called it his $25 house--an estimate of the total cost of materials. Several hundred dollars later, he still fondly refers to it as his $25 house on a $15,000 lot.

“I’m still working on the house. I probably always will be,” he says. “There’s an old superstition that when the last nail is driven, the builder will die. A house is a growing thing and always needing something, or there is always something you want to add or do to it.”

Sturgill has worked as a free-lance photographer at the University of Illinois, a construction crewman, restaurant fry cook, hospital orderly and farm helper.

Although he is skilled in crafting various items, including furniture, toys are his favorite.

“I love to make the toys more than anything else,” he says. “The toys bring a happiness that’s unlike any other item you can make. The smile on a child’s face when he or she sees one of my toys is the greatest feeling in the world.”