Establish a house of learning

Although they grew up in different circumstances Dad and Mom both came from homes where learning and thinking were important. They took both their formal and informal education seriously, which spilled over into their marriage and child-rearing. Early in their marriage they joined a book club through which they began collecting the extensive family library that we remember growing up. Making the accumulation of books a priority, rather than any one of a number of other possible collections that married folks embark upon, says much about what was important to them and what they had in common from the start. Somehow in their ever-busy lives Mom and Dad found time to read, often very early in the morning or very late at night. On a number of occasions I found one or both of them asleep with a book in their hands, presumably after they had tried to sneak in some personal study or relaxation time between their parental responsibilities. Their mutual love of learning has been evident throughout their life together, and has had a profound impact on their progeny. They have sought to follow the counsel to “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith…Establish a house of learning” (D&C 88:118-119).

There was never a problem finding something good to read at the Thompson house. In each of the homes our family lived in, from Hamer Drive until the present, I have clear memories of bookshelves lined with books, and a variety of reading opportunities. One of my most distinct memories has to be of the study in the tudor home in Cleveland, which I always called the library. I loved to curl up on the window seat and read a book or listen to the stereo. The built-in bookshelves lining three walls of the room were brimming with hundreds of volumes Dad and Mom had collected, including the classics by authors such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Mark Twain. There were numerous church reference books, books on history, politics and philosophy, and a set of The World Book Encyclopedias. I remember perusing the titles on the book bindings wondering about books titled Jesus Was Married, The Last of the Mohicans, and The Naked Capitalist. Some of my childhood favorites from the “grown up” shelves included the beautiful origami coffee table book, the etchings in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the Especially for Mormons series, and many of the nature and travel books produced by National Geographic. I spent hours reading the Childcraft set (the children’s companion to the encyclopedia), especially the volume titled “Things to Make and Do”. The wide variety of books exposed us to numerous wonders of the world, so we each had the opportunity to choose topics of interest to explore that appealed to us personally.

Of course we had a library of children’s books as well, some housed in the big bookshelf in the upstairs hallway, and some personal favorites that we kept in our bedrooms. There were several large volumes of storybook collections (like A Treasury of Children’s Literature), board books for the toddlers, Little Golden books (I remember The Poky Little Puppy), Disney classics, all kinds of chapter books, science and history-focused books, scripture story books, and paperbacks that Mom let us purchase through Scholastic book orders (The Borrowers series was one of my favorites). If I had an hour of undirected time Mom knew she would often find me curled up with a book in the library or in my bedroom. This was heaven for me because, like Jorge Luis Borges, "I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."