MEXICO — A collection of old marionettes on display this month at the Mexico Public Library had not been seen in years, according to Director Marilla Couch, who said she remembers them from when she was a child.

The figures are among memorabilia being shown during Maine Libraries Month.

Couch said the collection was found on a shelf downstairs.

“They were out for people to look at,” Couch said, “but the marionettes were placed way up where you couldn’t see them because they wouldn’t sit up.”

The figures, Couch said, brought back memories of shows she saw as a child, when Edna Bradeen was the children’s librarian.

“We came down here every week, during the ’60s,” she said. “The bus would drop us kids off, or we would walk down from the schools.”

The shows were for students in kindergarten to fifth grade and were held from the 1950s through the 1970s, she said.

Among the marionettes are “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” but not the originals because they had cardboard faces.

Marilla Couch, director of the Mexico Public Library, shows a collection of marionettes found downstairs and not seen in many years. Rumford Falls Times photo by Bruce Farrin

“She must have cut up a book to do those,” Couch said. “These are very old and not in great shape.”

After April, the marionettes will be displayed in a secure place upstairs, she said.

Other historical items on display include original secretarial minutes from the Library Advisory Committee, formed in April 1925, and registers of library cards issued since the library opened.

The library is at 134 Main St. It is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fridays and 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays.

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