WEST LEBANON — Books were more than just how Stanley Brown made a living: they were his life’s passion.
A sixth-generation Dartmouth student, Brown continued to hold a relationship with the college after he graduated in 1967 as director of Special Collections and eventually Curator of Rare Books for Rauner Library on campus, which is now located in Webster Hall. After 34 years, he retired from the position in 2004.
Old, rare books “have a presence that you don’t get from your average paperback,” said Margaret Allen, Brown’s wife of over thirty years.
As curator of rare books, Brown’s job was to care for the books in the collection and oversee the development of the collection by ordering new books, completing collections within the library, and handling donations. He also spoke in some lectures at Dartmouth and helped students conduct research for projects using certain rare books as sources.
Brown knew that books were his purpose early on in his academic career, and “he got more English degrees than anybody ever needs,” Allen, 76, said.
Brown grew up in Lexington, Mass., where he attended high school. He then completed his undergraduate studies at Dartmouth, where he started out as a pre-med student but quickly gravitated towards the Humanities after encountering organic chemistry, Allen said. Brown pursued graduate studies in English at Oxford University and Simmons University, where he graduated in 1970.
Allen and Brown attended Simmons at the same time, though they didn’t know each other at the time and never crossed paths. They met in the late ‘70s when they both served on the board of the New England Library Association. At the time, Allen was the director of the public library in Bennington and the pair got to know each other during association board meetings.
“I just thought he was awful cute,” Allen said.
At various library association events, such as dances and parties, Brown was a popular member in attendance. He would have “a whole string of ladies to dance with,” Allen said. “He was a very good dancer.”
Brown and Allen eventually got together and lived in Lebanon for about three years before getting married in 1988. They have lived in Lebanon ever since.
“I didn’t want to marry someone that I could push around,” Allen said, noting that Brown was stubborn.
When the couple argued, Allen was slow to anger while Brown had a short temper, but could let things go quickly. “Whenever I’d get mad at him, he could always make me laugh,” she said.
Brown’s sense of humor was a characteristic that others picked up on, too.
Assistant to the curator of rare books, Patti Houghton, who retired from Special Collections four years after Brown, remembers Brown’s comic personality in the workplace.
At a library department meeting, Brown presented an artists’ book that “looked like somebody had shot a bullet into it,” Houghton said.
Brown pretended that he had picked a fight with a coworker which resulted in the book’s mangled appearance, playing a prank on the members of the department.
Brown also enjoyed wordplay and puns, and he was an “avid player” of the daily “Jumble” in the Valley News, Houghton said.
When Houghton first met Brown in the ‘80s, she had a desk above Brown’s office in Baker Library.
“(Stan) had a warm and rumbly voice” that echoed up to her workspace, Houghton remembered.
She would overhear Brown speaking with donors — usually alumni. Sometimes, Brown had to decline a donation because it didn’t fit within the parameters of the collection, but he always did so graciously.
“He could convey his appreciation of the donor’s interest in his books, the effort behind the collection, or the family history in such a warm and gentle way that the donor did not leave with the feeling that his taste had been rejected,” Houghton wrote to the Valley News in a personal reflection on her memories of Brown.
During his time as curator of rare books, Brown managed a collection of over 100,000 volumes, consisting of early English and American literature and manuscripts, the college archives, and comprehensive collections of famous works such as those by Robert Frost and Herman Melville.
He loved bearing witness to old works in the collection and hunting down rare books to fill gaps in the library’s collection.
“It (wasn’t) just the contents of the books, it (was) the physical feel and smell and sight of old books” that excited Brown, Allen explained.
The oldest work in Special Collections is a leaflet from an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the earliest book to be mass-produced on the printing press in Europe in the 1450s.
Brown had a great appreciation for fine letter printing and was always excited to add examples of early printing and contemporary hand-printed books to Rauner’s collection.
He was also fond of artists’ books, Houghton said, which feature design elements that correspond to the contents of the book and are “made to stretch the boundaries of what you think a book is.”
For example, Brown brought a book into the collection by Claire Van Vliet — a Vermont author and typographer — with an accordion binding that stretched out so the book looked like the quilt pattern that was featured in its story.
Another book artist presented Brown and Houghton with two sticks of homemade gum that had words printed on them with vegetable dyes. The “books” were “meant to be tasted and consumed, not cataloged and stored,” Houghton said, and they were some of the more interesting works that had crossed their desks over the years.
Brown also loved miniature books, which measured ten centimeters or less in height; “it fascinated him that people could work on such a small scale,” Houghton said.
Stan’s literary passion also included an interest in the usage of the English language and its peculiarities.
“(The) use of the English language can be funny,” Allen said.
The word “fulsome” was “one that drove us both nuts,” she said.
The word has developed a different meaning over time and is now generally referred to in a positive light, though the word actually means ‘excessive flattery.’
Brown “enjoyed wordplay of all kinds,” Houghton added.
He kept a list of book titles and their authors that he found amusing, such as Fundamentals of Arctic Dentistry by Harry Eisberg, Death in Early America by M.M. Coffin, and Abnormal Psychology by J. R. Strange.
Outside of the library, Brown was involved in several community boards and organizations, including Lebanon’s city council and library board.
During his final year on the city council in the mid-’80s, he served as Lebanon’s mayor.
Brown also joined the board at Advance Transit in 1988 — four years after the formation of the organization — and was a proud member for around twenty years.
“He was supportive in every way,” said Advance Transit executive director, Van Chesnut. “It was people like Stan that put in the time to advance the organization.”
A master of words, Brown always made sure that the Advance Transit board meeting minutes were grammatically correct, and he was quick to remind that “buses” is spelled with one “s” and not two, a common misunderstanding.
Brown’s love for language and passion for books lasted for his whole life and his humor and kind presence followed him everywhere.
“Stan loved not only the books themselves, but the stories they carried about the people who made them and who collected them,” Houghton said.
“There are those of us who find (books) irresistible, and Stan was one (of them),” Allen added.
A memorial service for Stan Brown will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn on Labombard Road in Lebanon on Saturday, May 21, from 2 to 4 p.m.