Fran Moroney Whited

Fran Whited, a founding member of our library friends group, passed away this past week. She was a quiet, but active, insightful, and cheerful member who helped so much to get the group started. Fran started at Brockport as a 5th grade campus school "teacher-critic" in 1951. She was from Port Byron NY, and had attended Oswego in the 1940s, where Dr. Tower was one of her instructors before he came to Brockport to be our president.

After college she taught at several schools, got a masters at the Catholic University of America in Washington, and then came to Brockport. Over the years she got her PhD, and became a professor in our education department. In 1963 she was married to Clark Whited, a professor of physical education at Brockport. She retired in 1985 and was very active in that phase of her life in Brockport alumni and development affairs, a true friend not just of the library, but the college. In this post Fran is shown seated at left with some of her campus school colleagues in the 1950s. (Note: if you click on the photo you can see a larger image.) The following information is from her death notice in the newspaper:

There will be no prior calling hours. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Wednesday, January 6, at 10 AM at the Church of the Nativity BVM, Main Street, Brockport. A celebratory luncheon reception will be held in the New York room of the Cooper Building at the College at Brockport, following the Mass, until 1:15 PM. Interment (burial) will be in Saint Joseph's Cemetery, Auburn, New York, at 3:15 PM following the reception.

In lieu of flowers, friends may make contributions to the Frances Moroney Whited Scholarship Fund c/o the College at Brockport Foundation, the College at Brockport, or the Brockport Newman Oratory.

We have friends...

Friends in NYLA that is, the New York Library Association. The newest group in NYLA is the Friends section, and librarian Charlie Cowling will be checking in with them at the NYLA conference next week in Lake Placid.

Friends Photo Event!

The recent Friends event was a great success. We had a wonderful turnout, over 50 people, and everyone seemed to enjoy seeing the wide range of photos on display, and learning about the college history. The photos left out on the tables for identification were a success too, a number of them were given names, like the one shown here who turned out to be Jack Frank, who worked in the old Education Communications Center for a number of years in the 1960s and '70s.

A new source

This new blog will serve to keep us all up to date on the news and activities of the Friends of Drake Library. Today we had a meeting at which among other things we discussed the exciting summer event coming up, a "Trip down Memory Lane," which will be held in the library on August 12.

The event will be a visual tour through vintage images of the exciting expansion years of the 1950s, '60, and '70s. Featured here is the image used for the invitation. It is part of a 35mm slide set used in student recruitment programs in the 1950s.