100 Years of Community with BPL
Imagine a place where the teens hang out on Friday and Saturday nights, where things get so raucous that encyclopedias are being tossed out windows and the police are called in to monitor. Is it our beloved library that you’re picturing? No?
The Bexley Public Library is an innovator in so many ways. As it celebrates its centennial next month, we look back on its history – only to find that it’s less librarians shushing everyone and more progressive and livelier than expected.
One hundred years ago, Bexley was still quite rural. According to the local history librarian, David Distelhorst, only 154 homes had been built in Bexley in the 1910s. In the 20s, a building boom saw 1,363 new homes added to the neighborhood. Main Street was largely residential with a few homes for Capital University professors and farmers. Initially, the library was founded and housed within Bexley High School, which is now Montrose Elementary. It was common for libraries to be situated inside of and be connected to school libraries then. At the time, there were only 33 libraries in the state of Ohio, all operating within schools as of 1921, when the Ohio School District Library Law allowed a levy on real estate to fund public libraries.
Whitney Carr, Adult Services Manager, adds that it was a “big deal for Bexley residents” and Capital students and staff. “Even though Bexley had been a village since 1908, no library had been available to residents. Columbus Library was nearby, but a Bexley resident could only get a card there if it was co-signed by a Columbus property owner!” she says.
As demand outgrew the confines of the school, the city decided to begin construction on BPL’s current site. O.C. Miller and R.R. Reeves, the library’s architects, also designed Sessions Village.
Not long after the building’s completion in 1929, a library force made her way into the scene. Mary Teeter Zimmerman – or MTZ, as the staff called her – joined the staff in 1931 under the leadership of Head Librarian Mrs. Bilby. As it’s Women’s History Month, it’s interesting to note that online sources indicate that ninety percent of librarians were women in 1930. Though MTZ left BPL for a role with Columbus City Schools in 1940 and then took a leave of absence in 1948 to organize school libraries in the American-occupied zone in Germany after World War II, she returned to BPL as a children’s librarian and supervisor of the school libraries, which were still connected to BPL, in 1952.
Whitney shares that MTZ transformed the library from a collection of books to a cultural and education center, a brand that continues to this day. “The library began offering new programs and services, like a summer reading program for kids, Family Film Nights, a morning Coffee Hour Series, and a book delivery service for the homebound. BPL was one of the first libraries in Central Ohio to deliver books to people who were homebound.”
A few years into MTZ’s tenure, Doris Plaine was shopping at Town & Country when she ran into a friend from college who recommended Doris apply to the library. Doris, who’d previously worked at a women’s correctional facility in Virginia, was thrilled to join the library, and stayed there until her retirement in 1992 (she decided it was time because the library was moving to digital, and she didn’t know how to type. Her daughter, Mary, insists that she does know how to use her iPad now!). She rode the bus from Whitehall to work until “one day my husband said, we’re going to buy a house nearby so I could walk.” They lived in South Cassingham within sight of the library from then on.
Doris loved to meet people and recommend books. “Whenever she went out, she ran into people who knew her and asked for recommendations. She just loves a good story,” Mary adds.
“People would come to the circulation desk and ask for recommendations,” Doris recalls. But, then other people would complain that “I was making too much noise.” Soon, Doris was tasked with ordering books when they started using paperbacks. “I’d go on the bus and buy two bags of paperbacks and go back.” She also took on public speaking duties all over the city that she loved.
Doris recalls being in awe of MTZ. “She was the first woman we knew who went by her initials: MTZ. She was so interesting. Her parents grew Cocker Spaniels and people would board in their house. She went to Germany to set up libraries. She was one of the first dominant women I knew,” Doris says. “She also had this idea that there should be a truck that would go around between all the different libraries to share books.” (Sound familiar? A version of this actually happened… in 2014!) Doris shared the lively, family-like atmosphere of the library, as well as a number of changes over the years, from a dress code, to parties in the garden before the addition in 1968, to pushing leadership to upgrade the staff room from a corner in the basement with two chairs and a hot pot. “It was like a family. A lot of older women worked there and they took me under their wing: Stella Rogers, Mildred Fayer, Dorothy Thurston.”
During Doris’s early years at the library was when the “war babies” turned 16. “The teens came to the library. We called it ‘The Mating Shuffle.’ They just kept brushing against each other! And we had other problems, like the kids throwing encyclopedias out the window. We had to get the Bexley Police Department to come in to watch them. That’s how [retired BPD Sargeant] Bob Cull met his wife: at the library – she was at the kids’ desk.” Bob and Mary (then Flancher) have been married more than 40 years now.
One page, Bill McLoughlin, enjoyed the many opportunities the library gave him beyond his standard shelving duties, like checking out books and matching date-due cards with returned books. “No computers, no bar codes, no online records... and the library's massive card catalog with hundreds of pull-out drawers filled an entire room near the library's entrance,” Bill says. “We all loved Doris Plaine!” Bill says. “She took an interest in us students and always knew what was going on in our personal lives as well as our academic lives. She had a boisterous sense of humor and encouraged a light-hearted atmosphere inside the library, which made some of the boring jobs (like carding books) more bearable.”
“Each December, Doris and several of us students would write a play (sometimes in musical form) to perform at the staff Christmas party. We would poke gentle fun at our colleagues' foibles and re-create, in satirical fashion, some of the exchanges we'd had with patrons. It was all in good fun, and Doris made it all possible. She became a lifelong friend of mine,” Bill says. The staff parties sound like quite the good time. Doris loved doing these skits and often played MTZ or Santa in them. She also shared that the staff insisted that they change locations of the Christmas party so that Frank Freeman, a member of staff who was African American, could join them. The country club didn’t allow him inside.
Bill shares that he looked up to the women on staff, enjoyed their stories of traveling, was touched by acts of kindness (like giving him food and paying to fix his car after an accident) and was fascinated by their “colorful professional lives prior to working at the library. Diantha Cribb, who was in her 60s and the library's financial clerk, had been an actress in legitimate theatre in Chicago during the 1920s and 1930s, and she still spoke with a commanding stage voice. In the break room, she'd share recollections of theatre people and other celebrities who were her personal friends, such as Cole Porter, Tallulah Bankhead, and jazz pianist Marian McPartland. Mary Zimmerman, the head librarian, used to tell me stories about her friend Carl... whose last name was Sandburg!!! Imagine me, an 18-year-old student still ’green behind the ears,’ rubbing elbows every day with people like Diantha Cribb and Mary Zimmerman, who were personally connected to legends that I had only heard about. They provided an education that I could never have gotten in a classroom.”
In 1968, MTZ oversaw a renovation and expansion that allowed more space for studying and programming. The addition of the auditorium and browsing room on the east side gives the library the façade we know now. After MTZ retired in 1973, she was succeeded by head librarians Ms. Philips and then Mr. Stafford, then Rachel Rubin. Our current library director, Ben Heckman, was appointed in 2017.
Sue Shipe-Giles, Adults Services/Civics Librarian, was a child when the renovation occurred. She grew up in Bexley (class of 1978) and BPL was her childhood library. “My family did not really buy books, so the library was our source to get new reading material,” she says. She worked in journalism and public relations before changing careers into the field of libraries. “Doris Plaine was one of my neighbors while I was growing up. When I started working at BPL, I hadn’t seen her for years, so it was really nice to meet up with her again when she visited the library. She still called me ‘Susie.’” Sue is passionate about adult programming and feels that BPL is ahead of the curve with offerings that other libraries don’t have, like Elections/Voter Registration, AARP Tax Preparation, Senior programming, financial literacy, job help, gardening and food and cooking programs.
Sue agrees that Ben carries on MTZ’s welcoming approach. “Ben has definitely made the atmosphere the most enjoyable.”
An enjoyable atmosphere is just what BPL has planned this year so that the community can share in celebrating its 100th year. They’ve planned a Centennial Author speaker series starting April 25 with author Roosevelt Montás in conversation with Ben Heckman plus a good old-fashioned cake and ice cream party, a “100 Books for 100 Years”
There will be a family reading challenge, a centennial Art Show, special foods and drinks with Giuseppe’s, Bexley Pizza Plus, Johnson’s and Seventh Son Brewing, and a donation program for online books with Gramercy. The library will also be a destination on the Bexley House and Garden Tour.
"As I frequently tell my staff, we live everyday with the decisions made by our predecessors. MTZ and Doris shared our values of extraordinary service and building community through connection. I'm inspired when I think about the thousands of people who have visited our library over the last 100 years. We don’t always know the lasting impact the library has in their lives, but we know providing trustworthy information, personalized service, and open access to materials and resources empowers each patron we serve,” Ben says. “I’m incredibly grateful to be a part of this monumental year of service to our remarkable community, and honored to carry forth BPL’s legacy into the next 100 years."
