One Summer in Hawaii, Some Half-Century Later

The email read like a William Carlos Williams poem:

Dear Special Collections. 

I feel terrible to have found in a box 

One Summer In Hawaii

by Helen Mather

due May 8, 1978.

Would you like me to send this back to you?

If so please give me the address.

Best-

Carol Mills

The borrowing card for the book in question, tucked in the envelope inside the book’s back cover, shows 29 stamps. Dates beginning Jan 6 1974 end with the due date of its final withdrawal, May 8 1978. The book itself also attests to its popularity: its spine was replaced with green tape and cracking clear plastic, and the edges of its cloth-covered boards are tattered and frayed. 

The itinerant borrower turned penitent returner, Carol Mills, attended Middlebury from 1976 to 1978, when she transferred to the University of Washington to pursue a degree in graphic design. Boxed up in the end-of-year dorm move-out and forgotten, perhaps, the book stayed with Mills until this July when it rejoined the collection, accompanied by three other books on Hawaii which Mills donated. 

Three of the four were published before the U.S. colonization of Hawaii, offering insights into the time period and perceptions of the islands by travelers. The final book, Hawaii Recalls: Selling Romance to America, contains an inscription to Mills from 1991, hinting at her motivation to check out the book in the first place: “To Carol – Who will add to this legacy of talented Hawaiian graphic designers.” 

Indeed, she was born and raised in Hawaii, to mother Patricia Schryver Mills, class of 1949, who also left Middlebury before her graduation because, according to Carol, “her father told her he had run out of money to send her back to college.” Before arriving at Middlebury, Carol had never seen snow and learned to ski at the Snow Bowl during her time here. 

Carol and her mother both have fond memories of Middlebury. She wrote, “My mother loved it and that is why she showed it to me on our college tour! We are both so lucky to have attended school at such a special place!” 

(No late fees were issued.)