Her dad's rare book collection goes to UNCC
JERI KRENTZ
Reading Life Editor
Growing up in Atlanta, Ellen Chason remembers her father's lectures about books.
Don't pull them out by the top of the spine.
Don't lick your fingers to turn a page.
Hold them gently.
An architectural engineer, Chason's father kept special volumes in a lawyer's bookcase. He came to own an impressive collection -- two first editions of Thackeray, several illustrated histories from the mid-1850s, a "Book of Common Prayer" from 1853.
But he especially valued his copy of a 1599 Geneva Bible, with its dark leather binding and rag paper. Also known as the "Breeches Bible" (it refers to Adam and Eve sewing breeches for themselves in Genesis 3:7), it was the version brought along on the Mayflower.
Chason says her father loved the way his Geneva Bible was written, the way it looked. Sometimes he would let her sit and hold it on her lap.
"He treasured that Bible," she told me the other day at her home. "He would bring it out as something special."
When she and her husband moved to Charlotte in 1963, Chason brought her father's books with her. She kept them in the same lawyer's bookcase at her home in Myers Park.
A valuable donation
Today, 100 of Chason's books -- valued at $45,000 -- have a new home at UNC Charlotte in the Mary & Harry L. Dalton Rare Book & Manuscript Reading Room. Along with works by Walt Whitman, Phillis Wheatley and Mark Twain, they'll be available to readers in a controlled setting.Robin Brabham, UNCC rare books librarian and archivist, says the school's collection has featured American literature since 1971, when Harry Dalton donated a first edition of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."
Over the years, it has grown to include more than 8,500 rare books. In 1991, Mary Dalton donated a first edition of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick." Last spring, professor emeritus Julian Mason and his wife, Elsie, donated a rare edition of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."
Chason, who is moving and downsizing, wanted her father's Bible and his other books to be in a protected place for all to enjoy.
She visited her donation the other day.
"I felt that the way this university was growing, perhaps this would be of help in some way," she said that afternoon.
She believes her father would be pleased.
Goodbye from the editor
In 27 years here, I've written stories about a symphonic whistler and a college president, an ostrich rancher and a bookstore owner, a homeless shelter and a food bank.
But of all the words since 1981, these may be the hardest for me to write: Friday is my last day at the Observer. On Feb. 25, I'll start a new adventure as assistant director of communications at the Duke Endowment, a private foundation in Charlotte.
In a few weeks, you'll meet my successor: Pam Kelley. She's a veteran Observer journalist and I know book coverage will be in good hands.
Meanwhile, I begin my last week in the newsroom.
As Reading Life Editor, I've enjoyed interviewing authors, working with thoughtful reviewers, sharing Sundays with you through the Books page.
One of my favorite family photographs shows my oldest son, at age 3 or 4, sitting on the sofa with his stuffed frog by his side and a picture book on his lap. He has just turned to the first page; the camera caught his happy surprise.
I feel as if I'm about to turn a new page, too. It's hard leaving a job I love -- but I'm eager to see what lies ahead.
