The Library Board was established on September 10, 1914 by Town Ordinance No. 127. The board, composed of five members, was responsible for managing the library without compensation. The Board established rules and regulations necessary for the administration of the library, received gifts and donations, established the duties of the librarian and supervised the work, purchased books and publications and negotiated the budget with Town Council. Schools Superintendent Wade F. Thomas served as Board president for many years and on the Board until his death in 1946. Wade Thomas teacher and principal Valerie Ansel served on the Board for many years. The Board secretary handled business correspondence and accounting matters. It seems that the role of the early librarians was limited to service to patrons in a pleasing and courteous manner and the organization and maintenance of the collection. The Library Board continued in its managerial role into the 1970s, and then the responsibilities were changed to advisory in nature in 1976 when Ordinance No. 710 was adopted.
All the San Anselmo librarians and assistant librarians have been women. This is not surprising given that the profession is historically one dominated by women. The first four librarians, Bessie Wise, Alice Kirchman, Belle Meagor and Martha Adam, were high school graduates in their early twenties when appointed, and there is no indication that they had any particular training in library science, other than learning the ropes as an assistant librarian. In 1921, Belle Meagor attended the California Library Convention and wrote afterward that she lacked the “preparatory of the majority of the librarians, and I intend to improve myself.”
Bessie L. Wise of San Rafael was just 20 years old when she became San Anselmo’s first librarian at a salary of $40 per month. Her father had died in 1914, and she, her mother and siblings all worked to support the household. She left in April 1919 for “a larger field of work” and presumably a higher salary. Alice B. Kirchman of San Anselmo was hired to fill the position. She was 23 years old and had served under Wise as assistant librarian. In November 1920, Kirchman traded places with her assistant Annie Belle Meagor. Kirchman was in poor health and wanted to spend time outdoors regaining her health. She continued to work evenings each week. She married in 1922 and left the area.
Belle Meagor, a San Anselmo resident, graduated from Tamalpais High School two years prior to her appointment. Meagor served for nine years before resigning upon her marriage and was succeeded in April 1930 by Martha Saunders Adam of Ross, who had been serving as assistant to Meagor. Adam served for three years before she too resigned after her marriage.
The Library Board appointed Christine Wade Coolidge in May 1933 to succeed Adam at a starting salary of $75. She was the first librarian to have a college degree and some education in library science. The Board report appearing in the San Anselmo Herald of July 30, 1933 stated that “Mrs. Coolidge is introducing as rapidly as possible the latest in modern methods in running of the Library, cataloguing, classifying, etc., and this is of much assistance to the public in the use of the Library.”
Coolidge took a two month leave for health reasons in 1935 and did not return to her position. Virginia Richwagen Stewart became the next head librarian. A San Anselmo native, she graduated from
Main School in 1923 and joined the library staff when she was 20 years old. She served as assistant librarian under both Adam and Coolidge. Stewart was the longest serving librarian; she retired in 1967.
Lucy Dawson, 1931
The pattern of promoting from within continued with the appointment of Lucy Dawson Palo to succeed Stewart. She had come to San Anselmo as a child, attended Main School (now Wade Thomas) and was an honor student at Tamalpais High School, graduating in 1931. She was employed as a bookkeeper before joining the library staff and replacing Assistant Librarian Lillian Orchard Masterson in 1943. She soon was appointment secretary for the Library Board and prepared warrants and handled the financial records. For the next 24 years, Palo served as assistant under Virginia Stewart. In 1967 she was appointed as head librarian and remained in the job until 1978. Upon her retirement, a Town Council resolution noted that while “she was small in stature, she was large in accomplishment.” During her tenure, the library reached a reciprocal agreement with the Marin County Library, and Friends of the San Anselmo Library was formed.
Lucy Palo, 1973
The succeeding librarians would be professionally trained in library science, and they would take the library through remodels, two disastrous floods, difficult financial times and into the digital age. Their stories will be left for another time.