Mary Brown, a retired AAS staff member, died on December 10, 2012, at the age of ninety-nine. She began her AAS career in 1937 as part of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project that placed fourteen clerical workers at AAS to help with operations and to work on the backlog. If the goal of the WPA was to provide useful employment and training for the unemployed during the Depression, then Mary’s distinguished forty-one-year-long career at the Society was a complete success. In due course, she became the head of readers’ services and as such was the principal point of contact that researchers had with the Society, especially before the appointment of curators for the various collections. The hands-on training she received during her WPA stint provided her with a basic education in bibliography and library operations. She developed an uncanny knack for locating research materials that were either uncataloged or misshelved. She was known for her tireless and dedicated efforts to help the Society’s readers find the most relevant and productive materials possible, an early manifestation of the staff’s efforts to become partners in research with the readers. Many a scholar heaped praise on her in the acknowledgments in their books researched at the Society. Generally displaying a warm smile and hearty laugh, she was, however, not above scolding a reader for violating some Reading Room policy. Staff members, too, occasionally treaded lightly near her. No one would dare to sit in her customary chair in the break room or to take the space near the front door where Mary parked her beloved Volkswagen Beetle. She held strong interests in American history and literature, as manifested by her membership in the Worcester Historical Society and the National League of American Pen Women, as well as by her invaluable work at AAS. She was a faithful, long-time volunteer at Worcester’s St. Vincent Hospital and a devoted parishioner of St. Peter’s Church, from which she was buried. Last but not least, she was a wicked big Red Sox fan.
Spencer, MA
United States