Library book returned to LBHS 70 years later

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Talk about overdue. The Long Beach High School library received an unusual package recently, when Amy Sue McPartlan returned a library book titled “American Arts,” by Rilla Evelyn Jackman, published in 1928.

“While I was attempting to organize my post-Superstorm books, I discovered it on a shelf in a storage box,” McPartlan explained in a note to the library. “My mother is a Long Beach High School alumna, so I suspect that she may have borrowed it as a teenager.”

McPartlan said her mother, Ellen Gussow, who graduated in 1948, most likely borrowed the book when she first entered the high school in 1945, and somehow never returned it. Gussow, whose father Leonard was an artist, went on to study art at Syracuse University. She said she still remembers her Long Beach High School art teacher. The library thanked McPartlan for taking the time to return the book, and has put it on display for all to see.