Chris and Jen Futter at the McLennan Library with the table they made with encyclopedias and poplar wood cut in the yard of former long-time librarian Mariette Limoges.
Tom Henihan
Express Staff
@SmokyRixerExprs
Chris and Jen Futter recently presented a table they made to the McLennan Library. While the table is interesting for its novel concept and design, it also has special significance to the McLennan Library.
Constructed from encyclopaedias and poplar wood, the table’s connection to the library is through the wood, taken from the bole of a tree in the yard at the former home of Mariette Limoges, one of the town’s earliest residents and long-time McLennan
librarian.
Mariette Limoges, a music teacher by profession, ran the McLennan Library for close to forty years and was librarian at the time the library moved in the early 1980s from the Elks Hall to its current location at the Town Office Building.
Limoges began working part time at the library but when the library’s status changed from community to municipal, she acquired her librarian’s certificate by correspondence from Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and continued as full time librarian for 25 years, until her retirement at age 81, in June 2001.
Apart from the significance of the wood coming from a tree in Mariette Limoges yard, one ought not to overlook the relevance of using encyclopaedias.
Not so long ago, the encyclopaedia was an invaluable resource and a mainstay of every library. While online resources and omnipresent google have replaced the encyclopaedia, it is important to remember how reliant we all were on that printed source of reference for so many projects: the school essay, the university research paper or just as children at home gaining general knowledge of the world, its geography, history, science and art. To have the encyclopaedia commemorated in such a functional manner in the library is certainly fitting.
The encyclopaedias came from Cheryl Limoges and the Futter’s innovative design arranged them in a spiral formation, to create the pedestal of the table between the wood base and tabletop. Mariette Limoges’ house in McLennan is still in the family, currently owned by her great-grandnephew Richard Limoges. Mrs. Limoges, at 94 still enjoys playing the piano and now lives in St. Albert where she moved to be closer to her children after her husband passed away.
For anyone that is curious to have a firsthand look at the table, it has assumed its place of honour alongside a reading couch in the McLennan Library.
Former McLennan Librarian Mariette Limoges