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‘History in Mystery’ with Acclaimed Novelist Ellen Crosby

Middleburg, Virginia (June 14, 2023) The Middleburg Library Advisory Board is pleased to announce the third event in its Local Book and Author Series, “History in the Mystery,” a lively discussion and book signing with the acclaimed mystery novelist Ellen Crosby and historian Marc Leepson. The event takes place at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 27, 2023, at Slater Run Vineyard in Upperville. It is free and open to the public.

“We’re thrilled to have the multi-talented Ellen Crosby, best known in the Middleburg area for her twelve best-selling Virginia wine country mysteries, here to talk with our own Marc Leepson about how Ellen mixes real and historical events with fiction—and much more,” said Kathryn Baran, MLAB’s president.

“Aside from the wine country mysteries, Ellen has written about such diverse subjects as the War of 1812, Prohibition, Jackie Kennedy, Civil War reenacting, the Underground Railroad, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare, and Faberge Eggs. The discussion with Marc, followed by an audience Q&A, will center on how Ellen mixes real historical events into her fiction.”

Slater Run is the “perfect venue for this event,” said MLAB’s Len Shapiro, who heads the Local Book and Author Series Committee. “Ellen has spoken there several times. It’s the ideal setting for her wine mysteries. The folks at the vineyard are providing a complimentary glass of wine for attendees, along with wine purchases at reduced rates. Plus, the Winchester Book Gallery will be on hand to handle the sales of Ellen’s books, including Blow Up, her third Sophie Medina mystery, and her wine country mystery series.”

Ellen Crosby is the author of 16 books: 12 mysteries in the Virginia wine country series, three featuring international journalist Sophie Medina, and Moscow Nights, a standalone loosely based on her time as a journalist in the former Soviet Union. Her books have been nominated for the Library of Virginia People’s Choice Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Before writing fiction full-time, Ellen was an economist at the U.S. Senate, Moscow correspondent for ABC News Radio, and a freelance feature writer for The Washington Post. 

Marc Leepson, a former MLAB president, is a journalist, historian, and the author of nine nonfiction books, including Saving Monticello, Flag: An American Biography, and biographies of the Marquis de Lafayette, Francis Scott Key, and Army Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler. His tenth book, a house history of Huntland, the famed Hunt Country estate, will be published in August.

Slater Run Vineyards is located at 1500 Crenshaw Road in Upperville, a stone’s throw from Route 50 between Middleburg and Upperville.  

An Account of the Short-Lived Middleburg Regional Library

If you are writing about libraries, do you want to start out with, “In the beginning was the Word…”?

Maybe, but not in Middleburg. In Middleburg, Virginia, in the beginning, there was more than one word, there were many, but they were spoken primarily by two persons.

First, there was Mrs. Frederick Warburg. Wilma (everyone called this grande dame “Wilma”) had this word: “Library? What’s wrong with the bookmobile? It comes in to town, parks by the drugstore. You bring your books back and get your new ones. Splendid arrangement. No need for a library.”

The second word came from Don Musch. It was spoken more quietly than Wilma’s, but repeated more often: “This town ought to have a library.”

And so a committee was formed. You can’t do anything without a committee, can you? The committee decided that not only “we” – in Middleburg – needed a library, but all the folks ‘round about us needed a library, too. In short, the Middleburg region, needed a library. Region meant not only up the road to Aldie, and up the Sam Fred road, but down the Zulla road, and out the Atoka road, and anywhere ‘round about.

So, call it the Middleburg Regional Library.

And then, some other “so’s” – so we’d need books for a library, and so we’d need a place for a library.

Somehow – and it must have the hand of Musch – the committee got access to the bottom floor, the basement floor, of what was called the Old Health Center. The place is where the chief of police now hangs his hat, down beneath a couple of doctors’ offices.

“Dank” is the word for what it was; it was dank. It was filled with whatever. A citizen’s broom brigade went into action. The place became almost livable – at least for books.

Books, yes, the matter of books. Much needed in a library. The word was spread, and committee members were active, and the books started coming in.

The word that was spread was heard by such old Middleburg families as the Iselins. What did the Middleburg Regional Library need? Well…how about some reference books? Soon, a wall-full of reference books arrived. Was that what we meant? It sure was. A sign on the wall honored the whole Iselin family for the donation.

Cash money was not spurned, it was sought. The committee did not spurn anything, from one buck upwards. There was some wonderment when one of the region’s zillionaires sent in a check that just squeezed up into three figures (plus “and no cents”), but the check was not returned.

Knocking on doors, “selling” The Middleburg Regional Library, asking for donations, was part of the routine. Committeewoman Barbara Lazarsky, better known from her WW II airplane than tapping on doors, was received at a neighboring home by a woman of solemn demeanor – her arms were crossed – who said this was really a matter for her son, Chris Walker. Months later, Chris said he heard of the callers, but didn’t really focus on it very much because his mother, who greeted Barbara with folded arms, was doing so because she had just broken the arm, but didn’t want to upset her callers with this news.

One appeal for funds was written in German. It was addressed to a local landowner with ties to the Old Country. It said, in part: “we admit that we don’t have any Goethe in the library. On the other hand” (and this hoped-for pleasantry slid down to the end of German-language literature to cite a children’s cartoon book) “we don’t have ‘Max and Moritz’, either.”

In came a nice check. Not too much later, in came an airmail package from Switzerland. When opened, it contained a wonderful color edition of the capers of that famous children’s duo, Max und Moritz.

As the books came in, and the wall full of reference books was about to be used, there came the matter of the visitation of the Loudoun Library Board. They took measurement and said, “do this”, and “do that”. Why, or how, they ever came over in the first place is shrouded now in mystery – but they came to the conclusion that the proposed space was too small. It didn’t have enough square footage to be a library.

That did not have much effect on the Musch Regional Library committee members. They kept at it. They found a volunteer librarian, who learned as she went along. Then, a real professional one showed up, and then another pro, the present Mrs. William Worrall.

The Middleburg Regional Library needed a sign to lead folks down into the sunken garden of the Old Health Center and therefore down – sort of sideways – to the library. A sign? Local library? Local talent? Lloyd Kelly. He was painting away furiously and famously, and was “one of us”. (This was before he delighted all by suggesting he might be moved to Paris. “I mean, the Left Bank of U.S. 50”). The Library needed a sign. Kelly came up with a stylized fox’s head looking down into an open book: a real zinger.

Up it went. In later years, when the present library was just settling into its building, the question was asked, “now, what about that sign that says, ‘Middleburg Regional Library’ and features that absolutely charming fox head and open book?”

“Well.., “ was the wishy-washy answer … “we’re not …” “Ah ha, you’re not sure you want to keep it?”

“Well …”

“Oh, you’re not sure, eh. That sign is what we call an ‘Early Kelly’ … and if you don’t want it …”

“Yes, yes, an ‘early Kelly’, of course, of course. We’ll be keeping it.” And the next week it was up on the wall in an honored spot.

But back to the opening of the library. Who cuts opening ribbons better than United States Senators, especially if they live down the road at Atoka Farm? Yes, John Warner would cut the ribbon and open the library.

He appeared, cut the ribbon and made a few remarks which are lost to history. The query put to him, however, still lives in the minds of those present: “Senator, when you were Secretary of the Navy did you insist that all navy libraries use the Admiral Dewy Decimal System?”

Even the committee member who posed the question thought it was not too bad, but the senator just stood there, unsmiling. Observers were not sure whether he did not recognize the name of Admiral Dewy, or the phrase “decimal system”, or simply thought there might be a vote on the subject and he wanted to keep his options open.

In the course of getting the Middleburg Regional Library going, that library which has become The Middleburg Library of the Loudoun system, one committee member did about five minutes worth of serious research. He found out that no library in the county – possible with the exception of the one in Leesburg – had originated from the “center”, the county seat. No one came out from Leesburg and said in X-ville or Y-Town, “You ought to have a library.” No. All efforts to have libraries in various county communities originated in the community itself. The community pushed the county supervisors and library board to found a library. And that is the way it happened in Middleburg, too.

Lost in the fog of memory of this chronicler, are details on how the county actually came ‘round to saying, “all right Middleburg, here’s your library.” But it got built. While getting started, a volume of the Iselin collection, a superb

Who’s Who’s went to the library in Leesburg. They trashed it. Why? It was Who’s Who not Who’s Who In America. Since then, some Middleburg patrons have always been suspicious of Leesburg.

“Meanwhile…” as the phrase is … “back in Middleburg…” … patrons were delighted to tell newcomers, “yes, our library is easy to find. It’s located on Reed Street.”

After The Middleburg Library got in full swing, a member of the old Middleburg Library committee met an esteemed town personage walking confidently down from the library to the parking lot. She noted that the bright yellow warning stripe she had requested had been painted along the edge of the ramp. As she passed the committeeman, she smiled and displayer her clutch of books.

“This library’s not bad, is it?” said Wilma Warburg.

Angus MacLean Thuermer, The Barn House, Middleburg, VA., July 1999