History buff, columnist loves to check out ‘quirky places’
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CORTLAND -- Patrick Finan likes to travel to what he says are "quirky places."
The Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota? Check.
Frankenmuth, Michigan, home of the world's largest Christmas store? Check that one several times.
Sturgis, South Dakota, during the annual motorcycle rally? Yep, but not specifically to see the bikes.
Dix, N.Y., to see the bloody towel from President Abraham Lincoln's assassination? And last fall, a trip to Winchester, Va., to see the hall where Niles native and former President William McKinley was inducted into the Masons? As a presidential history buff, that would be a definitive yes on both of those.
"Oh, the places I've dragged Ellen, too," Finan, who turns 70 on Thursday, said with a laugh.
Ellen is his wife, with whom he will celebrate 40 years of marriage in September.
The pair met through Ellen's boss, who was the director of the Athens County Library System. Her boss and Patrick crossed paths at meetings because he was the director of the neighboring Logan-Hocking County Library.
"Her boss played matchmaker," Finan said. "Our first date was a movie. We went to see 'Breaking Away.'"
The movie was an American coming-of-age comedy-drama produced and directed by Peter Yates and written by Steve Tesich, according to IMDB.com. It follows a group of four boys in Bloomington, Ind., who recently have graduated from high school.
That was in September 1979. They got engaged in February 1980 but did not get married until September 1981 because Ellen was studying for her master's degree in library science and landed a nine-month graduate assistantship at a cooperative children's book center in Madison, Wis.
The couple has three children -- Beth (Daniel) Klimow, 36, of Arlington, Va.; Paul (Dara) Finan, 32, of Westlake; and Patrick Finan, 26, of New York City. They also have three grandchildren, Anastasia Klimow, 15 months; and Sophie Finan, 18 months, and Henry Finan, 4 months. So now their travels include visits to see their grandchildren.
LIBRARY CAREER
Finan graduated from Walsh Jesuit High School in Cuyahoga Falls and then earned an undergraduate degree in education at the University of Akron. After deciding that he "didn't want to teach for the rest of his life," he went to Kent State University and earned a Master of Library Science degree in 18 months in August 1977.
He said the director of the Stow library became his mentor and right after graduation from KSU, Finan became the director of the Logan-Hocking County Library.
"It was kind of unusual for a new graduate to become a director," he said.
After Ellen returned from Wisconsin, the pair started looking for jobs closer together. He found a job as the director of the Portage County District Library in Hiram in May 1981. It later moved to Garrettsville, with branches in Aurora, Streetsboro, Windham and Randolph.
Ellen found a job as the children's librarian at the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library in June 1981. Patrick stayed in Portage County for nearly 17 years while Ellen spent her entire career in Warren, retiring in March 2009.
He became the director of the McKinley Memorial Library in April 1998 and retired Feb. 1, 2016, after nearly 18 years there and almost 40 years in the library field. During his tenure, the McKinley Replica House was built.
"I always liked history and working at a presidential library that also had a museum seemed interesting and was something different than my previous jobs," Finan said. "And the children were getting older, and I wanted to be closer to home."
Ellen was born in South Dakota, but grew up in Minnesota. Her father took a job as a pharmacist in Chillicothe, which is how she ended up in Ohio, Finan explained. The couple lived in Warren for 18 months and then lived in Howland for eight years. They have lived in Cortland since November 1991.
"We couldn't find a house we liked in Howland, so we built one in Cortland," Finan said. "My dad was a lumber salesman, so I grew up around new houses."
LOVE OF READING
Finan was born in Akron, the oldest of three boys to Paul and Catherine Finan, but grew up in Stow -- within walking distance of the public library. He said he spent a lot of time there, but didn't go every day.
Finan said as a youth, he enjoyed books about sports, especially baseball. His mother and father read the newspaper every day, so he developed a love of reading at an early age.
Today, Finan enjoys reading true crime novels -- a "guilty pleasure" he shares with his youngest brother, William, of Dublin, Ohio. He said his brother sent him information about a 2019 list from the New York Times of the Top 50 true crime novels -- one from each state -- and he recently started plowing through it. He also is reading the 2021 Edgar Award winner for nonfiction, "Veritas," which is about a religious forgery.
His favorite genre is mystery, and his favorite author is Michael Connelly.
Finan said libraries are the "great equalizer" because they put information at everyone's fingertips.
"The internet is great, but people spend so much time trying to find information that a librarian can find in a matter of minutes if they would just ask," he said.
LOVE OF BASEBALL
Finan said he is a huge baseball fan and especially loves the Cleveland Indians. He has a baseball from the team's 2016 spring training with almost every team member's autograph on it. That was one of the Cleveland teams that went to the World Series.
He also collects autographed books by sports writer Terry Pluto.
"I am in of his books," Finan said. "He picked an essay I wrote as an excerpt in his book 'The Browns Blues,' which came out at the end of 2018."
LOVE OF TRAVEL
In addition to the "quirky places," Finan likes to visit places that have a connection to President McKinley. He and Ellen also have been to the Holy Land in January 2014 and Japan in 2009. The couple has crossed Lake Michigan on a ferry and have been to northern California several times when his brother lived there.
He also likes to visit baseball parks, and he and Ellen have been to more than 20. In 2019, they saw former Indian Trevor Bauer pitch his last game in Kansas City.
And for his 70th birthday, the Finans are going to Punderson State Park in Geauga County for several days.
Next year, he would like to visit the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C. He said one of the town hall lecturers at Packard Music Hall wrote a book about it, which sparked his interest.
They have visited 45 of the 50 states -- missing out on Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. He hasn't ruled any of them out for future trips.