Lee Brawner
The following is an excerpt from a charming and funny reminiscence of Elizabeth Crabb by Lee Brawner, director of the Metropolitan Library System in Oklahoma City. The remarks were prepared for Elizabeth's wake held on September 5, 1996, at the TLA office in Austin.
The new Dallas Public Library Central Library on Commerce Street had only been open a few years when I came on board in 1958 with a BS in library science from North Texas State College. The library system and new central library had put Dallas on the national map. It was hailed as one of the best supported libraries in the state and southwest. Under the direction of its neon-light director, James (Jim) Meeks it attracted a diverse staff and imparted to them considerable resources and authority to promote, expand and deliver services. Many luminary library personages--including Elizabeth Mahafee--would thrive in this open atmosphere and bound on to head up other libraries and library endeavors of their own. Others would serve as the bedrock that strengthened and propelled DPL and NETLS.
To my my delight and astonishment, I would come to head the Popular Library and Circulation Department (the front line troops) at central. That stellar staff and especially Elizabeth Mahafee, my first assistant, pulled me through and taught me gently, but soundly. Our small professional and paraprofessional staff was responsible for selecting all the adult fiction and popular non-fiction for the department and for the system.
Elizabeth was incredible; she out-read, out-scanned, out-reviewed all of us. Never without a book in hand and at least six underway. She would push up her half-glasses and make her way nimbly through a review book, chortling, tisk-ing, smiling, scolding as she went with body contortions to match the genre. Her selection review notes were classics, ofttimes more worthy than the book itself. We nervously checked our own pre-pub selections against the book reviews in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, London Times, Saturday Review, et. al., with the fervor of a handicapper viewing the results at the track. Elizabeth’s body English told all as she read the reviews (fist curled at hip, hands raised, eyes narrowed, lips pinched at “know-nothing” reviews; head nodding, eyes twinkling, arms folded upon reading reviews with which we were one).
One of the few times Elizabeth would put her book down was in the staff lounge when she would frequently become engaged in hot debate (no matter the topic) with the effervescent, ever-argumentative, chief of branch services, SamWhitten. She could hold her own positions adroitly and usually concluded by putting the book down on Sam's bald head.
There's much more in the good memory bank about Elizabeth (filing the cat cards "above the rod" for the beady-eyed catalogers to "check and drop", coaching the DPL ladies bowling team with Elizabeth. . .). But my eyes are already too misty from the rich memories of my time with my friend and colleague, Elizabeth Crabb, to continue.
Thanks, Elizabeth, for sharing your talents, grit, leadership, love and spirit with all of us. . .and yes, I can sense you admonishing me to bring this to a close. You were a mentor to all of us and we loved you too. Good bye.
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