Former SLJ Editor Cheatham Dies at 70

Bertha M. Cheatham, School Library Journal's managing editor and news and features editor from 1973 to 1990, died November 29, 2002, after a battle with cancer. She was 70. Cheatham began her career as a children's librarian at the Brooklyn (NY) Public Library and spent 12 years as a school librarian in Hartsdale, NY. Following her 17-year tenure at SLJ, she worked at the Nassau (NY) Library System and the Chappaqua, Greenburgh, Somers, and Mount Kisco libraries, all in Westchester County, NY.

Cheatham earned an MLS from Pratt Institute and an MA in education communications from the University of Hawaii. Lillian N. Gerhardt, SLJ's chief editor throughout Cheatham's career, says, "It's been said that everyone can be described in only two carefully chosen words. My two for Bertha—in her life and now in my memories—are 'feisty charm.' For 17 of our toughest growing years, Bertha—poised, articulate, and with the skills of a practiced storyteller to children—represented SLJ's staff to our readership with all the matchless style and grace she brought to her pain-filled last days."