A little shiver caressed her skin as she bent to stretch her hamstrings. Then she pushed her fears away and began to run.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Kiersten
Kiersten climbed out of her car at the Martha Washington Library. Her entire body felt like a pool noodle, and she once again questioned the premise that exercise gave people more energy.
But all the tension in her sore shoulders evaporated when she entered the hushed building, where sound itself was absorbed by thousands of books.
She walked up to the front desk to conduct today’s business: getting a new library card, finding some books on teaching and creating lesson plans, and figuring out Dottie’s last name. She waited patiently while the librarian helped a mother with three small boys check out the greater works of Thomas the Tank Engine. Then she turned to Kiersten.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for advertisements for a Chevy dealership here in Alexandria back in 1964 and 1965. Do you have any idea how I could find something like that?”
“Hmm. Interesting request.” The librarian stacked three copies ofHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Princebeside her computer. “You could try theFort Hunt Gazette.”
Kiersten frowned. “Never heard of it.”
“That’s because it went out of business in 1972,” the librarian said, peering at her over reading glasses. “Our region used to have countless newspapers. The whole country did. Back when journalism was profitable. Now of course most of them are defunct. But theGazetteserved readers in Alexandria from 1946 to 1972. I’d start with that. If you don’t find what you’re looking for there, you could go wider and tryThe Washington Postarchives online.”
“Okay, but how do I search a defunct newspaper?”
“Microfilm.” The librarian picked up the Harry Potter books. “Follow me.”
Kiersten trailed after her through a forest of shelves. The librarian stepped into a dark room tucked in a far corner and flicked on the lights. Then she pointed to a machine sitting on a table. It looked kind of like a computer monitor.
“Have you ever used microfilm before?” the librarian asked.
“Sorry.” Kiersten shook her head. “I’m new to all this.”
“Is this genealogy research?”
“Not exactly.” She explained how she’d found the diaries in her basement. “All I have to go on is her first name and the fact that her father owned a car dealership in the area.”
The librarian pursed her lips in thought. “You’re on the right track. A lot of businesses back in the day bore the owner’s name, like ‘Smith and Sons.’ If we can figure out her last name and the year she graduated, we can figure out where she went to high school and find a picture.”
Her use of the wordwemade Kiersten feel lighter. She wasn’t doing this research alone. “That would be great. I’ll do the microfilm first and look through advertisements. Then I can try the yearbooks.”
The librarian led her to a row of file cabinets, then opened a drawer and removed three boxes of microfilm. “Start here,” she said.
They returned to the room with the microfilm reader, where the librarian showed Kiersten how to load the spool of film into the reader, how to move backward and forward, and how to zoom in and out.
“Good luck,” she said with a smile. Then she left Kiersten alone.
It took Kiersten a few minutes to get used to using the equipment, but after some trial and error, she figured out how to scroll through the newspaper, zooming in to examine the many ads sprinkled throughout the pages.
Looking up at the screen, she read an advertisement for shoes that cost $2.99 a pair and girls’ cotton play sets for just 99 cents, plus ads for flameless “electric heat,” an amenity advertised as “not just for the rich anymore.”
She had to force herself to focus because she kept reading the articles. The year 1965 didn’t seem like the distant past, yet everything was so different back in an era before cell phones, social media, and the instant gratification of Amazon deliveries and DoorDash.
Leaning back in her chair, she stretched her tired muscles and glanced at the time on her phone. She’d gone through the first box of microfilm and started on the second, but she still hadn’t found a single clue about Dottie. She’d try one more box; then she’d have to head home. Garrett and the boys would be back from the museum soon.
She loaded a new roll and started again, flipping through the images on the screen.
Suddenly she sat up straight and leaned forward.
There. On the lower left side of the page. An advertisement for Anderson Motors, a Chevy dealership with locations in Arlington, Fairfax, and Alexandria, Virginia.
