Living with his 35,000 books
Osceola man's extraordinary library took shape over three generations
David Richards, left, who heads the Missouri State University Special Collections and Archives Department, examines several books with Tom Johnson in Johnson's Osceola home and library. / Dan Holtmeyer/News-Leader
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OSCEOLA — Tom Johnson, 83, lives in the museum that is his home. In his own non-digital way, he curates his family’s legacy, the estimated 35,000 books and manuscripts that share his 113-year-old meandering and musty house on the Osage River.
Johnson has built wooden corridors that link the family three-story home to the family library, built in 1899 by his grandfather for a collection of 8,000 books, and another that connects the house to the annex library, built in 1990 when the library overflowed. Grandfather Thomas Moore Johnson (1851-1919) was known as the “sage of the Osage.”
With his knit cap and Scotch-taped glasses, it is hard at times not to think of Tom Johnson as a living exhibit from a time when the printed word shook the world like the digital word shakes it today.
The Johnson Library and Museum became a nonprofit in 1990. Its board of directors includes David Richards, an associate professor at Missouri State University who oversees the school’s special collections and archives.
Richards and Johnson met in 2009 at a rare books event at MSU. Richards at the time knew little about the library and museum. Johnson invited him to take a look.
“I was stunned by what he had,” Richards said.
MSU has since signed a memorandum of cooperation with the library and, as a result, students and faculty have access to the collection, which can be a help, Richards said, in the academic areas of history, philosophy, religious studies, classical and modern languages, English, library science and anything to do with Greek philosopher Plato.
Three generations of Johnsons never set out to collect “rare books.” Instead, they collected books that fell within their diverse areas of interest — from Plato, to law, to economics, to India, to archeology, to Sanskrit.
Not everything in the collection is a 300-year-old scholarly tome. The museum has mystery novels, Jackie Collins’ steamy tales of lust, small books designed to fit into the pockets of GIs during World War II and tawdry novellas Richards calls “bodice rippers.”
Many of the older books are in Latin or Greek — or both, on facing pages — and date from the 16th and 17th centuries. The best digital searches, Richards said, show that some of the books are only cataloged at one or two libraries in the world.
Started with Plato
The oldest book in Johnson’s collection dates to 1489. It was written by a man named Marsillius Ficinus. It is about the ancient philosopher Plotinus. The publication year falls within 50 years of the development of the Gutenberg press in Germany. Gutenberg did not invent the printing press but improved it to the point that accessibility to printed material exploded.
Johnson’s grandfather was absorbed by Plato. The original 8,000-book collection reflects that. Plotinus and Proclus were ancient philosophers who lived hundreds of years after Plato and in the 19th century were dubbed Neo-Platonists. That interest shows in the family tree: Johnson’s father was named Franklin Plotinus Johnson, and his two uncles had the middle names of Plato and Proclus.
Speaking of Plato, a logical question about the collection would be: Are some of these books valuable?
Richards and Johnson would prefer that answer not be made public.
Richards said he has been unsuccessful in acquiring a grant for someone fluent in both Greek and Latin to catalog the collection, much of which remains uncharted.
“I have a general sense of most of what is here, although there are some corners that have things that I have not examined,” Johnson said. “Probably there are some things that nobody has examined for a hundred years or so.”
And yes, he said, it is possible — but unlikely — there’s a book older than 1489 in the collection that he simply doesn’t know is gathering dust on a shelf.
Not best environment
On a rainy day last week, a few of the roads near the library and museum were claimed by the swollen river. Inside, Johnson asks guests to sign a registry with few names on it.
Richards said Johnson’s home is not the best environment for preserving old books. In addition, he said, whenever he hears news of a fire in Osceola, his heart jumps a page.
There is peeling wallpaper and water stains on the ceiling of a second-floor bedroom that houses a room with six portraits. All were acquired by Johnson’s father in the 1950s. They are not paintings of family members. In some, only the subject is known. In others, only the painter is known.
On the wall of a nearby bedroom is a thanks-for-dinner note to Johnson’s grandmother from three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, who dined here in 1902 and more than likely slept here.
Overall, the house does not appear to be in as good of shape as Johnson.
He is nimble as he stoops for books to introduce to visitors. He ascends narrow, twisting steps like a mountain goat.
On Monday nights he plays volleyball with friends at a Springfield church. He is mentally keen, and a smarter journalist might be capable of assessing him as brilliant.
Johnson grew up in Chicago, where his father was a professor of archeology. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. Twenty-six years ago he was the prosecuting attorney for St. Clair County, of which Osceola is the county seat.
In the home, he opens a drawer to display fragments of pottery his father gathered in Greece and Rome.
“Unfortunately, they do not have labels,” he said.
Part of the library is devoted to India, Jainism and Sanskrit, a language centered in India. Johnson’s Aunt Helen studied Sanskrit. She never married, died in 1967 and left money to the Osceola animal shelter, which bears her name.
There’s a collection of Bibles, as well, including a tiny New Testament within a tiny case.
But wherever you look, you won’t find a computer. In this digital age, with the future of printed books uncertain, Johnson lives surrounded by the printed word.
“For me personally, I prefer books to digital resources,” he said.
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