SATICOY : Library to Be Razed Was Hub for Area

White landowners in Saticoy used a comfortable church basement as their library 70 years ago while the Latinos who worked their farms and orchards visited a wooden shack to read books.

But despite cramped quarters and a leaky roof, the shack proved to be not only an educational resource but a haven and gathering place for generations of Latino children.

Next month, the shack that became the one-room Saticoy Library will be demolished to make room for a new community center. Its books, once piled high against the walls of the tiny room, were packed into boxes by volunteers this week and will be carted to other libraries or stashed in a van as part of the Bookmobile service.

“Losing the library is like losing a good friend. It’s the hub of Saticoy,” said Rachel Anguiano, who has owned a nearby business for 50 years. “We love it dearly.”

Plans for a new library are still in the works, said Evelyn Cuevas, Saticoy’s librarian for the past six years. In the meantime, the Bookmobile will visit Saticoy Park on Violeta Street every Thursday and Friday afternoon.

“It’s really difficult for a lot of kids here to get to the nearest library,” Cuevas said.

Until last week, the school bus dropped children off across the street from the Violeta Street library every school day.

As many as 20 children at a time would sprawl out on the worn carpet or crowd around the few tables to color or read each afternoon.

“We were very cramped in here,” Cuevas said, adding that the library housed almost 10,000 books in a room barely 700 square feet in size. “But it was also very cozy.”

During the week, Cuevas helped children with their homework, talked with them or helped them make crafts.

“Now there really is nothing for them and it worries the parents,” Cuevas said. “They know it’s not going to be the same.”

Historians trace the library to a 1916 decision by residents to accept a tax to pay for the library. Three years later, a local librarian was catering to Latino children, according to Sol Sheridan’s “History of Ventura County.”

Until about 1961, the community continued to use two libraries. One was in the basement of a church established originally for whites. A second was the shack used by Latinos, said Catherine Worden, who worked at the library from 1960 until 1977.

Over the years the shack gave way to the 700-square-foot building and became a meeting place for Latino children with hungry minds.

A bookmobile visited the fields and librarians made an effort to maintain a quality selection of books written in Spanish, Worden said.

“The library has never been really very affluent and we’ve always had problems” maintaining it, Worden said. “But there was a lot of loyalty.”

Three generations of Bertha Marquez’s family have spent time in the library across the street from her home. “We’ll miss it a lot,” she said. “But that’s progress.”