Marguerite Goss spent half a lifetime at the Tutt Branch library, helping patrons find good books and reading stories to children.
Goss, who will turn 100 years old Thursday, returned to the St. Joseph County Public Library’s Tutt Branch on Monday to be honored and to hang a newly framed photograph of Virginia M. Tutt.
Goss worked as a librarian in the South Bend system for 47 1/2 years. She came to be known as “The Story Lady,” eventually leading some story-time sessions on the radio. Over the years, she also wrote news releases for the library and sometimes appeared on TV to promote library events.
Goss started in the South Bend library system in 1928, working a year as an unpaid apprentice. She retired in 1976 from the Tutt Branch, where she spent her entire career and was acting head librarian for more than a decade. [ed- they couldn’t take away the ‘acting’ part?]
100 year old librarian?
Isn’t she a little old to be a librarian? Does she have her MLS? If not she is not a librarian.
“She retired in 1976…”
Just a guess… reading “between the lines” of the title of “Acting Librarian” probably reflects an earlier era when generally only men were “head” of departments and “family men” were promoted readily despite women with more experience and skills in their workplace. (Men needed to support their families was the theory. Women with children often did not “count” as equals in that “pre-equal women’s rights” era.)
Also, the MLS did not exist as a terminal (required) degree until the1970’s, until then, a Bachelor’s degree was the minimum professional education requirement.