Elaine Flaherty, 89, of South Portland was 9 when Berry Memorial Library in Buxton opened. She remembers watching the library opening from the grammar school across the street, where she was a fourth-grader.

She made her first return to the library since her schoolgirl years Saturday for an open house celebrating the 80th anniversary of the library that opened in 1929.

“It brought me back,” said Flaherty, who drove herself there Saturday. “Isn’t it beautiful.”

The vintage library at 93 Main St. has a new board of trustees to guide it. Buxton selectmen on Jan. 21 named Bill Nemitz, Bonita Usher and Sharon House as library trustees, along with Charlene Libby who became a trustee last summer. Libby said the newly-appointed board was scheduled to meet for the first time Wednesday, Feb. 4.

Berry Memorial Library was built with land and money bequeathed to Buxton by Andrew L. Berry, who died in 1914. Berry and his wife, Susan, who died in 1926, were childless. The gift was left to the town in memory of his father, Stephen H. Berry.

In a special town meeting in 1926, the town officially accepted the bequeath. Berry Memorial Library opened Jan. 5, 1929, with Fannie Towle as its first librarian.

Flaherty, who grew up nearby on Towle Street, remembers the first librarian.

“We learned a lot from her,” said Flaherty, who said the school allowed one class at a time to go to the library. “She was good to children.”

Flaherty was one of about 60 people attending Saturday’s catered open house. Libby said the party featured finger sandwiches, vegetables, fruit, cookies and brownies.

Libby said two of the guests Saturday were women from Baxter Memorial Library in Gorham. “They brought us a bag of books,” Libby said.

In July, the present librarian, Claudine Emerson, succeeded Alice Pease, who served 30 years and also was a library trustee. “I always enjoyed the people and the children coming in,” Pease said.

Emerson’s assistant is her daughter, Abigail, 4, who said it’s fun. “I like to help put books on the shelf,” Abigail said.

Emerson, who lives nearby, said the library is equipped with a computer and has Internet access but lacks plumbing. Merton Waterman, a longtime trustee who stepped down recently, said Tuesday the library once was served with water from a point, a pipe driven into the ground. But, he said it didn’t work too well.

The library is planning to install running water and a restroom along with making the library handicap accessible. Emerson said modernizing would allow the library to add programs like a story time for children.

The library has 6,500 books, including Buxton histories and several by local children’s author Kate Douglas Wiggin. An antique desk from a one-room school has a display of children’s books.

Emerson said many of the books like “Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck weren’t classics when first placed on the wooden shelves but have become classics.

The shelves haven’t been changed, and it is much the same inside and out as it looked 80 years ago. Its front entry features original glass. Emerson said the library is in immaculate condition, thanks to Waterman.

But it didn’t always look so nice. When Waterman became a trustee many years ago, the library was dilapidated, the ceiling was falling in.

“It was in bad shape,” he said.

Pease described the library today as a lovely building. “Merty always kept it nice,” Pease said.

The library is open 1-5 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays and 6-8 p.m. on Tuesdays. The library can be reached at 929-5484.

(Berry library 2) – Claudine Emerson, librarian at Berry Memorial Library in Buxton, reads to her daughter Abigail, 4, on Friday. The library celebrated its 80th birthday Saturday.