Book 99 Years Overdue Returned to Library

75-year-old Stanley Dudek found a book entitled “Facts I Ought to Know about the Government of My Country” among his mother’s possessions when she died in 1998. He didn’t know it was a library book at the time. Last year, he noticed the book was due back on May 2, 1910. On Monday, he finally returned the book to the New Bedford Public Library in Massachusetts.

“I didn’t feel I should keep it any longer. It belongs to the people and city of New Bedford, the government. felt it was my duty to get it back to the library,” he said.

Fortunately for Dudek, the fine on the book — about $360, he said, or a penny for each day overdue, which was the charge way back when — was waived.

“My blood pressure will probably go down now,” Dudek said.

The book, which was printed in 1894, was given to Dudek’s mother in 1922 when she arrived in the US from her native Poland. The library has no record as to who originally checked it out. Link -via Unique Daily

(image credit: Peter Pereira/The Standard Times)