School Librarian

Edna Abramson, a retired Baltimore school librarian, died Jan. 24 at Sinai Hospital after an illness of several months.Ms. Abramson, who was 81, had moved recently from the Lochearn area to the North Oaks Retirement Community in Pikesville. She retired in 1971 as head librarian at the Garrison Junior High School, a post she had held since 1943. She began teaching in Baltimore schools in 1928.The Baltimore native graduated from Western High School, attended Goucher College and graduated from what is now Towson State University.

The recent editorial ("Teachers packing heat," April 4) has a scathing opinion of the National Rifle Association's proposal to arm teaching staff in schools. The editorial calls this an "egregious line of thinking" and suggests that if "strapping a sidearm on the school librarian" is a deterrent, everyone should be required "to carry loaded weapons around wherever they go. " The editorial also claims that polls still who strong public support for universal background checks for gun purchases and that such an arrangement is the least politicians should support.

Joyce V. "Joy" Sackett, a retired parochial school librarian and official scorekeeper for a youth baseball team, died March 25 of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Sunrise Senior Care in Severna Park. She was 75. Joyce Virginia Grant was born in Severna Park and raised in West Baltimore. After graduating from Western High School in 1951, she worked as a secretary for Cochran Transfer. After her 1957 marriage to Walter Sackett, she worked for several years as a secretary for a Baltimore furniture distribution company.

Baltimore County school librarians are worried about their next chapter. New schools Superintendent Dallas Dance wants to eliminate from school system policy a written requirement that each school have a librarian and has shifted library science functions from the instruction and curriculum department to testing and technology. Dance said that neither the reorganization nor the proposed policy revisions are intended as a slight to librarians, and that he doesn't intend to reduce the number of librarians working in county schools.

Services for Marjorie Theresa Woodfield, a retired Baltimore County high school librarian, will be at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow at St. John the Baptist Church in Throop, Pa.Mrs. Woodfield, who lived on Kirwin Court in the Revere Park ZTC area of Baltimore County, died Thursday at Stella Maris Hospice after a brief illness. She was 64.She retired in 1989 from Chesapeake Senior High School in eastern Baltimore County.Mrs. Woodfield served in Baltimore County public schools for 27 years. She opened new libraries at Chesapeake Senior High and twice at Perry Hall Senior High, first at the original location and then at its present location.

Mary E. Ezzo, a retired Baltimore County public school librarian, died Wednesday of complications caused by dementia at North Oaks Retirement Community in Pikesville. The former Sudbrook Park resident was 90. Born Mary E. Ross in Lancaster, Pa., she graduated from Millersville State Teachers College in Pennsylvania in 1934. She was married for 47 years to Stephen A. Ezzo, who died in 1986. She moved to Baltimore with her husband in the late 1930s. She worked at the Glenn L. Martin Co. as an engineering librarian until 1956, when she became a secondary school librarian in Baltimore County.

Gretchen A. Whitney, a retired Baltimore elementary school teacher and librarian, died of a heart attack Friday at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Northeast Baltimore resident was 88. Born Gretchen Ann Kurtzman in Hibbing, Minn., she earned a bachelor's degree in education from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn. She moved to Baltimore in 1952 with her husband, Ambrose Whitney, a W.R. Grace chemist. He died in 1997. She began teaching fourth grade at Northwood Elementary School in 1954, and after 12 years she became the librarian at Glenmount Elementary.

Martha Agnes Gover Bradford, a retired school librarian whose caring and thoughtful nature endeared her to several generations of Baltimore public school students, died Wednesday of progressive supranuclear palsy at Manor Care Health Services in Roland Park. She was 74.Mrs. Bradford began her career in the late 1940s and was the first librarian at Cherry Hill Junior High School when it opened in the 1950s. For more than 15 years, Mrs. Bradford saw to the literary needs of the students at Calverton Junior High School.

Elizabeth F. Fobes, a retired school librarian, died Sunday after an apparent heart attack at her home on Stapleton Court in Timonium. She was 75.A mass of Christian burial for Mrs. Fobes was being offered today at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, 101 Church Lane, Texas.She retired in 1980 from Franklin High School after working there and in other Baltimore County schools for more than 20 years.She came to the Baltimore area in about 1950 with her husband, Malcolm R. Fobes. He died in 1981 after retiring as business services and plant director at Goucher College.

Sister Mary Germana Strassberger, a retired Mercy High School librarian, died of coronary artery disease Wednesday at her order's retirement home in Pinehurst in Baltimore County. She was 96. Born Helen Adelia Strassberger in Baltimore, she attended the old St. John's Academy and was a 1929 Seton High School graduate. She entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1931 and took the name Mary Germana. She received her bachelor's degree in education at the old Mount St. Agnes College and a master's degree in library science at Villanova University in 1971.

Park School librarian Laura Amy Schlitz on Monday joined a select group of authors to be twice honored with one of the nation's top prizes for children's literature. Her 2012 Victorian gothic, "Splendors and Glooms," was named one of three Newbery Honor Books by the American Library Association during a morning news conference in Seattle. An honor book essentially is a runner-up; the winner of the 2013 award was Katherine Applegate's "The One and Only Ivan," about an easygoing gorilla who rescues a baby elephant from a rundown mall and a life of neglect.

Vera Welch Hall, a retired Baltimore City public school teacher and librarian, died of heart disease Oct. 6 at the Augsburg Lutheran Home. The West Baltimore resident was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised on Calhoun Street near Franklin Square, she was the daughter of Harry Allen Welch, a chauffeur, and Edna Brown Welch, a homemaker and an early cashier at the Carroll Park golf course. She was a 1943 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School. As a young adult, she performed with the Arena Players . Her daughter, Patrice A. Hall of Brooklyn, N.Y., said her mother determined at age 5 to become a school teacher and graduated from Coppin State Teacher's College in 1947.

Rodney S. Gobrecht, a retired Baltimore County public school librarian and media services specialist, died Monday of lung cancer at his Reisterstown home. He was 76. Mr. Gobrecht was born and raised in Hanover, Pa., where he graduated in 1954 from Eichelberger High School. After graduating from Gettysburg College in 1958, he served in the Army. He later earned a master's degree in library science from the Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Gobrecht began his career in city public schools, and he worked for more than 30 years for Baltimore County public schools as a librarian and media services specialist.

Helen T. Armstrong, a retired public school librarian, died June 21 of multiple organ failure at Kendal at Longwood retirement community in Kennett Square, Pa. She was 95. Helen Towne Armstrong, the daughter of James Wadsworth Armstrong and Abbie Richmond Armstrong, was born in Baltimore and was raised in a house on the grounds of the Lake Montebello filtration plant, which her father had designed and managed for 25 years. He also designed the dams at Prettyboy and Loch Raven reservoirs, said a niece, Martha Hendrickson of Lutherville.

Esther L. Sandstrom, a former middle school librarian and a world traveler, died May 26 of heart failure at Franklin Square Hospital Center. She was 95. Esther Louise Plancon, the daughter of French immigrants, was born and raised in Springfield, Mass., where she graduated in 1933 from Classical High School. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from American International College in Springfield in 1937. She worked as a telephone operator after college and in 1937 married John Russell Sandstrom.

Mary G. Creaghan, a Loyola High School librarian who during her nearly four-decade career helped generations of students appreciate the world of books and letters, died in her sleep Saturday at St. Elizabeth Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Southwest Baltimore. She was 98. Mary Gabriel Creaghan, the daughter of a contractor and a homemaker, was born in Marriottsville and raised in Pikesville. She was a 1929 graduate of St. Joseph Academy in Emmitsburg and earned her bachelor's degree in English in 1933 from St. Joseph College, also in Emmitsburg.

Carol Hackett Pieper, a retired librarian at St. Paul's School for Boys, died Friday of complications from Parkinson's disease at Carroll County General Hospital. The former Ruxton resident was 79. Born Carol Frances Hackett in Stamford, Conn., she was a 1940 gradate of the Greenwood School on North Charles Street and earned an associate's degree from Pine Manor Junior College in Wellesley, Mass., and bachelor's and master's degrees in library science from what is now Towson University.

Robert Hallett, a longtime Baltimore County school librarian who invented a spandex-clad superhero to motivate children to read, died Monday of a rare form of leukemia. The Reisterstown resident was 60. Mr. Hallett, who was called Bob when not assuming one of his alter egos, spent much of his more than 30-year career as a library-media specialist at Riderwood Elementary in Towson, where staff, parents and students described him as central to the school's spirit and culture. After his diagnosis and hospitalization several months ago, the community raised funds for his family through "Team Hallett" bumper stickers and wristbands, and gathered in a twice-weekly prayer group.