Sara Siebert, Margaret A. Edwards' Protégé, Leaves $650K to Library
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By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 02/02/2009
Sara Siebert, nicknamed Bunny (as in the Energizer Bunny) by her colleagues at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, MD, left more than $650,000 of her assets to the institution when she died last year at the age of 88.
The donation was one of the largest single gifts to the library, says library spokesman Roswell Encina, and totals more than the entire salary Siebert received during her 34 years as director of young adult reading.
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Librarian Sara Siebert left $650K to the Enoch Pratt Free Library in MD when she died last year at 88. |
Surprisingly for a librarian, Siebert left an estate of more than $2 million after her death.
Where did she get all that money? Siebert was financially astute, and years before her death, she quit smoking and sold valuable tobacco company stocks her father had purchased, reports the Baltimore Sun. With those funds, she established a charitable trust for Goucher College, which received more than $600,000 at the time.
Siebert had no survivors and divided her assets among three of her favorite Baltimore institutions: the Enoch Pratt library, the Walters Art Museum, and the Broadmead Retirement Community, where she spent the final years of her life.
Deborah Taylor, the Pratt's school and student services coordinator, first met Siebert as a ninth grader at Western High. “She ran me all over the library, recommending one book after another,” she told the Baltimore Sun. “Other students came to be in awe of her because they had never seen anyone more passionate about books."
Born in Baltimore, Siebert joined the Pratt staff immediately after her Goucher graduation and was the protégé of Margaret Alexander Edwards, who founded the library's young adult readers section.
According to the Margaret A. Edwards trust, in the 1930s, Siebert used to ride a trolley car downtown and hang out with her friends at Central Pratt Library. When the teenagers would bring in their books, Edwards would question them about what they had read. “I hid from her sometimes,” says Siebert. “Mrs. Edwards felt I was too much a city girl, and she wanted to broaden my scope. She would chase me around with books in her hand to get me to read them.”
When Siebert graduated from Goucher College, she went straight to Pratt Library. Assigned to Branch 12, she “stoked the furnaces, took care of the books, and handed out information when needed.” In 1962, Siebert followed in Edwards’ footsteps, becoming the Coordinator of Work with Young Adults at the Pratt Library.
The Margaret A. Edwards Award, administered by the Young Adult Library Services and sponsored by School Library Journal, was established in 1988 and honors an author and a specific body of his or her work.
