My First Encyclopedias

One of the neat things that Dad did for me when I was in third grade (that would make it about 1958) was to bring me home a full set of Compton's Encyclopedias! To this day I can remember how thrilled I was. It seemed to me that I had entered adulthood because I had my very own set of encyclopedias.

The encyclopedias had come from Brigham Young University library (I think). I do remember going with Dad on a delivery that he had to make for Acme Building Products when they were building that library. That wasn't the day he got the books, however. I remember thinking that trip with Dad was a wonderful experience.

I'm sure that when they were published in 1938/9 they were very up-to-date, but this was 1958 so they were a bit out of date. I looked at the maps, showing pre-World War 2 boundaries and wondered about that a bit. The school books (of course!) were more up to date, but I really valued this gift from Dad. I used them to write reports, and I used to just read them by the hour. (I think Dad and Mom wondered if it was such a good idea to give them to me!) From reading those books, I got the grand idea (never carried out!) to write my own encyclopedia.

After a while (about 1967) I had a job and bought my own set of World Book. That was neat, but I still remember my first encyclopedias, saved from the trash by a loving father.