Late last week Steve Stoller, a former president and current board member of the Friends of the Wake Forest Public Library, became aware that other board members were discussing dissolving the group. He informed other former board members and the concern about the possible action grew from there.
The concern on the part of many stems from the fact that the libraries in Wake Forest and the Friends organization are two community touchstones, ways in which the people here have defined ourselves.
It began in 1961 when a county-wide referendum to establish a library system which could have raised taxes by 7 cents was defeated though it was passed by Wake Forest voters. Catherine Paschal, who lived in the family house on Durham Road and was a member of the board at Olivia Raney Library in Raleigh, the only public library in the county, took that as a personal challenge. She was joined by a number of other people, including Henry L. Miller, a businessman and three-time mayor.
This small group of people talked to others in their churches, club and neighborhoods in what was then a very small town, 2,664 people which was 1,000 fewer than in 1956 when Wake Forest College moved away.
First the W.W. Holding family donated the space, two rooms that had been the office for the family business, the W. W. Holding Cotton Company. They had moved to a new building, a warehouse with larger offices in front on South White Street. You can still find both buildings on South White in much the same condition.
The newly formed Wake Forest Woman’s Club held card parties at the Community House to raise money. However, most of the money for expenses and the librarian’s salary came from a $3,000 federal grant Miss Paschal helped obtain.
Mac Bridge, who taught shop and agriculture in the high school that was then housed in the elegant brick building on West Sycamore Avenue that is now part of Wake Forest Elementary School helped his students build and stain the fir bookshelves.
Nannie Holding helped stock the library – which opened with 825 books – by suggesting people could donate books as memorials for loved ones or give money to buy books.
The library opened on Nov. 15, 1961 with Helen Sistrunk as the first librarian and Miss Paschal as her assistant. Sistrunk’s family soon moved away, and for several years Irene Holding with her assistants Pearl Ray and Mabel West ran the library.
Miller would be the chairman of the Wake Forest Public Library Board for several years and would be one of the men in 1973 who convinced Paul Wright, the president of Central Carolina Bank (later CCB and now SunTrust) to build a new building and donate half the purchase cost of its existing building (now Two Dog Gallery) to the town if the town could raise the other half.
Once again the Wake Forest Woman’s Club and Miller organized a fund-raising campaign that raised $23,000. The building was deeded to the town, which paid the water, sewer and electric bills for the next 22 years.
Irene Holding retired. Joyce Board became librarian in 1974, retiring in 1913. Frankie Eppes (who has just moved to a nursing home) was the assistant librarian for many years, and after she retired, Dot Hinton was hired.
It was 1979 before Wake County established a county-wide library system and the Wake Forest Library was one of the town-supported libraries which merged into the county system.
By 1990 Wake Forest had added territory through annexation and had 5,581 residents. The library in the old bank building was too small and needed constant repairs. Town officials and residents began pressing county officials for a new library building, which finally opened in 1996 after a lot of disagreement and acrimony.
The town donated the land on East Holding Avenue though it was not its first choice.
Miller had died in 1991, leaving the first of two generous contributions — $53,000 – that was used in the library’s construction. It was the reason the county increased the size from 4,000 to 5,000 square feet. The rest of the money came from a county-wide bond issue.
In 2000, after Miller’s second wife, Angie, died, the monies in the charitable remainder trust Miler had established in 1990 were distributed and the Wake Forest library received $47,000 which remains in a trust fund.
