By Rachel Simmons, Library Archivist
March 13, 2025
When we think of frontier life – sunny Florida doesn’t often come to mind, much less the fashionable hamlet that is Winter Park. However, once upon a time not so long ago, that was certainly the case here. What many people also don’t know is that their library was one of their first established institutions, as a matter of fact, Winter Park Library is older than the city itself. So, in honor of Women’s History Month, let’s talk about the fascinating and sometimes mysterious nine women who founded one of our city’s oldest resources.
Our founders gathered one cool winter morning on December 9, 1885, and that day agreed to start a library in the little village. One common denominator among most of the library founders is that they were either unusually highly educated or were educators themselves who wanted to get together to discuss ways to improve life in the soon-to-be-established town.
What is known of our founders is best summarized from the book, “From Miss Lamson’s Porch” by Susan S. Parnell and Yvonne Vassel:
“Elizabeth Hooker, 41, was the wife of Dr. Hooker, a Congregational minister and president of Rollins College. The daughter of a missionary, she had six children. She was raised by an uncle, a professor at Middlebury College, and so received some advanced education and was likely familiar with the workings of a college library.
Mary McClure, 63, and Mary E. Brown, 62, had both retired from teaching at Northwestern University. McClure, an artist, was said to be rather introverted. On the other hand, Mary Brown was remembered after her death at 87 in 1909 as being “of singularly acute and independent mind, a lover of the best books, a keen critic… and an unfailing source of intellectual stimulus to all who knew her.” Like Mrs. Hooker, Brown was the daughter of missionaries; her father had been an Episcopal priest who served on the Florida east coast in the 1870s.”
Elizabeth Hooker and her Family
We pause here, dear reader, to interject the little known fact that the homestead on which Mary Brown and Mary McClure lived was known as “No Man’s Land” – just in case you were laboring under the false impression these ladies were without a sense of humor.
Continuing on…
“Little is known of Mrs. C.J. Ladd except that the Winter Park Column of May 17, 1885, reported the arrival of Mr. Ladd of Everett, Mass. and, in October, reported that his store – one half a drugstore and the other a hardware store – occupied the entire ground floor of the New Hampshire block.
There were two Misses Guild who came from Boston with their father, Dr. William A. Guild, in December of 1883. Dr. Guild later purchased property on the north shore of Lake Osceola and built “Weatogue” as a residence and boarding house. Alice Guild was probably the one elected as a fundraiser for the library. She was about 25 years old, a graduate of the Boston Art School. Her sister Clara was a member of the first class at Rollins and later received the college’s first degree conferred upon a woman.
Evaline Lampson 1885
Mrs. Clark was described in one newspaper article as “a wealthy lady from Minneapolis.” She was the mother-in-law of Frederick Lyman, the first chairman of the Rollins College Board of Trustees.
Mrs. W.O. Cady and Mrs. Cook were from Bloomington, Illinois. Apart from the fact Mr. Cady was the clerk for Robert White in his Park Avenue store, little is known about either woman. In 1887 the local newspaper reported that the Cadys had returned to their old home in Illinois and mentioned that Mrs. Cady was a librarian for the Winter Park circulating library. However, after that year, the names of both Mrs. Cady and Mrs. Cook disappeared from mention in surviving records and it’s believed they did not return to live in Winter Park.
Evaline Lamson, 30, lived with her mother and assisted with managing the boarding/rooming house the family ran. She had come to Winter Park that year with her mother, brother Arthur and possibly a second brother. She was to become a driving force behind the library’s survival and for several years served simultaneously as librarian for the town library and the one at Rollins College.”
Evaline Lamson, our second head librarian, served in that role for 22 years, from 1887 until finally retiring in 1909. When the library was officially incorporated in 1894, it already had a circulating collection of 866 books. The first library building was the foyer and porch of Lamson’s home until the first building was constructed in 1902.
That’s not to say the library’s journey has always been an easy one, in the 1930s the bank that held all the funds for the library failed, taking all the money that had been raised with it. Thankfully, the fine folks of Winter Park came together to weather those Depression years with circulation ever-increasing, even during the worst of times.
Of course, we can’t forget the librarians of the Hannibal Square Public Library. Upon its opening in 1937, it boasted 1,400 books. An open house was held to introduce the community to their new facility.
In its early days, the library also served the citizens of the West Side by providing space for community groups and clubs to meet. Throughout the history of the library, six women held the position of Librarian. In 1937, Miss Callie Colston was appointed as the first Librarian. She was a college graduate and had previously been a teacher. She was succeeded by Mrs. Tabitha Ray in 1943. Mrs. Mildred Wilkerson, Mrs. Gwendolyn Johnson, Miss Mildred Carter, and Miss Beverly Dixon all served in this capacity throughout the life span of the library. When we moved to the third location on New England Avenue in 1979, the two libraries were combined.
Beverly Dixon
From these humble beginnings, the library has grown into one of the best in Florida – which ain’t a bad look for being 140, is it?