Linda Stoltz never had children, but she found something else to lavish her attentions on: building up a free library at the John Day Senior Center.

“It’s my legacy,” Stoltz said.

Stoltz, who started volunteering at the center shortly after moving to John Day in 2002, got the idea after visiting the Monument Senior Center.

“They had a great library,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to do that.’”

Problem was, there was no space for a library at the John Day center.

But Stoltz was patient — and persistent. She bided her time, and when the opportunity presented itself, she took advantage of it.

The senior center had a room with a couch and a couple of pool tables. But pool fell out of favor with the center’s patrons, and the pool tables were sold off. When they moved out, Stoltz moved in.

That was in 2013. As luck would have it, a bookstore in John Day was closing, and the owner made Stoltz a deal on a pair of bookcases and told her she could take all the books she wanted for free.

“So I started with two bookcases and four boxes of books,” Stoltz said.

Over the years, Stoltz has expanded and upgraded her offerings. Today, the library is a bright, clean, attractive space with six freshly painted bookshelves (a donation from the Grant County Library), a rotating rack for paperbacks and another for magazines, and a table and six chairs that are sometimes used for meetings. The walls are decorated with framed pictures and a handmade sign that says “Linda’s Library,” a gift from the senior center staff.

The library is divided into alphabetized sections including religion, Westerns, romance, general fiction, nonfiction, cooking and health, mysteries and Stoltz’s personal favorite, horror (she’s read just about everything Steven King has ever written, and Dean Koontz is another favorite).

There are also jigsaw puzzles, board games, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes and even a section of children’s books (labeled “For Your Grandchildren”).

Unlike most libraries, no card is required and there’s no checkout process — patrons can take what they like and keep it as long as they want.

The only exceptions to the “no return necessary” policy are large print books and board games.

“Anything else, I don’t care,” Stolz said.

You don’t have to be a senior citizen to use Linda’s Library, which is open the same hours as the senior center. These days, that’s 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays. (In case you haven’t been there before, the John Day Senior Center is at 142 NE Dayton St., tucked in a corner of the Elks Club parking lot.)

Although many of the books patrons “borrow” from the library never come back, Stoltz has no trouble keeping the shelves filled.

She gets regular donations of books from individuals and occasional donations in bulk from Sue Z Q’s Thrift Store. Sometimes she’ll buy books at second-hand stores or estate sales. When she has more books than she knows what to do with, she’ll donate some to Valley View Assisted Living or take them to D.G. Driscoll’s Books in Canyon City, where she’ll trade them for store credit to buy more books.

“I have a library at my house, too,” Stoltz said. “Every now and then I’ll get tired of those (books) and bring them in here.”

While she does most of the work herself, Stoltz has an assistant, Janet Gohring, who comes in on Fridays and does whatever needs doing.

“She helps me with anything,” Stoltz said. “She’s a trouper.”

Stoltz said her favorite thing about running the library is matching people up with a good book.

“It’s such a joy,” she said.

Sometimes she even takes requests.

“I had one lady,” Stoltz recalled, “who said, ‘I really like Louis L’Amour, but the only one I haven’t read is “Conagher.”’ It took me one week to find it. She was so happy.”

NAME: Linda Stoltz

AGE: 72

RESIDENCE: John Day

OCCUPATION: Retired after a career as an apartment, restaurant and bar manager

CLAIM TO FAME: Started and maintains the free library at the John Day Senior Center, 142 SE Dayton St.

FAVORITE BOOK: “Brother Odd,” by Dean Koontz

ETC.: To donate books to Linda’s Library, call 541-575-5522 and leave a message

Linda’s Library is open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays. The original version of this story had one of the days wrong. That error has been corrected.