By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
After just over a decade of a roller coaster ride, the Long Lake Library came a giant step closer to reality thanks to the generosity of a township couple.
Linda Lishawa, co-chair of the steering committee of the Friends of the Traverse Area District Library Long Lake Branch, checked the mail one day in March and found an astonishing pledge inside: Gerald and Iva Bates would give the branch library $100,000 toward their goal.
Unable to breathe and not believing her eyes, she phoned the Bates just to make sure the decimal and zeroes were in the right place.
"She is so on top of everything that she is the last person in the world to make a mistake,” said Lishawa of Iva, who at 88 still runs a public accounting business. "It was so unbelievable.”
The number was correct. The Bates simply wanted to give the longtime but recently rejuvenated effort to build a library a much-needed boost. The donation makes the effort more viable and allows the Friends group to apply for grants.
Combined with money raised from past fund raisers, the groundbreaking on property at the corner of North Long Lake Road and Manhattan Road is now projected for July 2008.
"There's such a huge need,” said Lishawa, a retired special education teacher who taught at Long Lake Elementary School and Traverse City West Senior High School. "I've worked with so many students over the years who aren't able to get into the downtown library, as beautiful as it is and as much as we like it.”
Never having been blessed with children themselves, the Bates took a step to ensure that future children — and people of all ages — would have a library nearby. In a township with many young families and more than 8,000 residents, some estimates put that number close to 9,000, it is an investment in future generations.
"We like to read and thought that it was nice for Long Lake Township to have a branch out here because Long Lake Township is one of the top populated townships [in the region] so there's a lot of people out here and make something handy for them,” said Iva Bates, a lifelong resident of the township.
Gerald is a native of neighboring Almira Township who, like his wife, came from a family of avid readers. The couple married in 1946, shortly after Gerald came home from serving in the Army during World War II, and settled on Iva's family dairy farm. They ran the farm until 1991 when Gerald retired.
"My folks sold milk and then when my husband took over, he raised beef cattle — he wasn't about to milk cows, be on a time clock, seven days a week,” she recalled.
The donation advanced the effort at a crucial time, bringing the capital campaign halfway to the goal for Phase I, which is the library. A second phase will include a community room but the Friends group is concentrating on the library at this point.
"Traverse Area District Library just recommitted to our project, which we knew would happen but it's now officially in writing that they will staff and supply it,” said Lishawa.
Ten plus years into the project, various plans have come and gone while a small community reading room, frequented by Gerald, concluded a nine-year run in 2005.
"This is a grass roots effort, the township is not directing it,” noted Lishawa. "It is a group of citizens who just wouldn't sit down.”
For more information on the proposed Traverse Area District Library Long Lake Branch, see their web site at www.longlakelibrary.com.