Karen’s first love as a child was reading.  She always had a book in her hands and would much rather be reading than talking.  As young children, our mother took us to the library frequently and Karen would always check out tons of books and read ALL of them. As she grew up, her favorite series was The Happy Hollisters, a mystery adventure series about a family with 5 kids and a dog named Zip. I think Karen owned every one of the 33-volume series! Karen would read one of the stories and then tell me about the Happy Hollisters latest adventure and how they would investigate and solve some great mystery. I loved having her share the stories in detail with me, because it saved me from ever having to read them myself!! Reading was NOT my favorite activity!

But all that changed the summer of 1970 when our family moved to VA from RI. We were living in a new place and had not made any friends yet so we were a little bored.  Karen discovered that the bookmobile was going to come to our neighborhood so she dragged me down the street to go check it out.  She was so excited to have some new books to read and made it look like so much fun that I decided I needed something to read too! She patiently helped me find a few books she thought I would enjoy. We returned home with arms full of books and spent the next several weeks reading. And guess what? I discovered I loved to read and loved good stories as much as Karen did!!

We made many more trips to the bookmobile after that and my love for reading continued — all thanks to Karen and her love of books!!!