Elizabeth Perry - Librarian

Librarian Elizabeth Perry inspired love of reading in many people.

In March 1985, Decks Awash magazine did a story about the Clarenville Public Library and its then new location on Manitoba Drive interviewing Elizabeth. Here is an excerpt below.

“I’ve been librarian about eight years,” says Elizabeth. We opened here in September. We used to be at the Town Hall where there was only one room and the books were pushing us out the door. We had six or seven thousand titles. I’d say we have room here for double the amount of non-fiction.”

“I’m not from here, I grew up in Ontario. In 1949, I married a Newfoundlander, George Perry from Gander. He got me with Canada,” she adds with a smile.

“I joined the Air Force in the war and I was with Transport Command at Dorval. George was working there as an accountant for British Overseas Airways Corporation. He saw me in the cafeteria and said. ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry’. But he was sent to Bermuda in 1945, it was a year before he could introduce himself and three years before he talked me into marriage. We were married in Montreal and came straight to Gander. As we flew in, all I could see was trees and water. I’ll never forget landing. When we left the plane the wind was blowing so hard I didn’t know whether to hang on to my skirt or my hat.”

Elizabeth had four children, Anne, Nicola, Jennifer and Richard. George started an accounting business in Clarenville and in 1975 moved his family there. A lifelong affair with books and letters led Elizabeth to become a librarian.

“My mother was a bookworm. I joined my first library when I was five. They told me I was the youngest person to join. I have a cousin who was in book publishing. He was a boy genius. During the war, when he was 9, he devised a plan for the invasion of Europe complete with maps and flags. I have always been associated with libraries and I was on the board of this one when the librarian resigned in 1977 and I took the job.

“We have a large circulation of non-fiction and it’s increasing. People come in to see how to fix their cars and build their houses, especially books on insulation and energy saving. It seems as the economy gets worse, the more people use a library. Some of these people probably never used a library before.”

Have you been to the Clarenville Public Library recently?

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