Carolyn Kneeshaw was Chief Librarian from 1980 to 2006. Carolyn actually started at the library as Head of the Adult Services Department in 1969. After taking time off to raise her children, she returned to the library as CEO in 1980. After she passed away in 2014, the Library Board renamed the Board room in honour of Carolyn Kneeshaw, in recognition of her long time dedication to St. Thomas Public Library and her contributions to the community.

In 2010, the Library Board received a donation of $300,000 from Dorothy Palmer for the development of the John & Dorothy Palmer Youth Library. As you visit the Children’s and Teens’ area, you’ll see many special attractions and unique features that were made possible with the help of this generous donation. Dorothy and her husband John never had children of their own, but they recognized the impact that a library can make in the lives of children. Our customers still benefit from that generous legacy.

In making her donation for the Palmer Youth Library, Dorothy Palmer requested that a room or space be set aside for children’s programming and be named after her parents, Fred and Ethel Ingram.

Prior to his retirement, Donald McNabb was a Geography teacher at Central Elgin Collegiate in St. Thomas. Don held a pilot’s licence and he and his wife Shirley were recurrent travelers. Don’s fascination with the world and its people was expressed in his interest in his students. He arranged for his students to experience a flight in an airplane (the first time that many had flown) over the immediate vicinity. A report about settlement and traffic patterns, land use, glacial features etc. was expected. This gave his students a practical application of Geography and a sense of St. Thomas in the “big picture.” It was a view from a different perspective.

After his retirement, Don and Shirley were weekly and welcome visitors to the St. Thomas Public Library. They continued their involvement with the world and their community with a donation to the St. Thomas Public Library. In his later years, Don was a great user of the large print collection, and he left a generous donation in support of large print and audio visual materials. Customers benefit from their gift daily.

Harris Lionel Rinn, a teacher a Westdale Secondary School in Hamilton, Ontario, died on September 10, 1954. In his will, he provided a legacy in memory of his father, George Robert Rinn. Rinn had been a well-known grocer and butcher in St. Thomas. The legacy provided $10,000 to St. Thomas Public Library, to be used for the purpose of purchasing materials on the Arts. The Library Board invested the money, and has used interest from the investment to purchase materials. The Rinn Trust has proven to be an important source of cultural information for the citizens of St. Thomas. The Trust will continue to contribute to the community!

Beloved by many St. Thomas residents, Mary Ann Neely was a passionate and creative high-school English teacher at Alma College and Parkside Collegiate Institute.

Mary Ann was born in Buffalo, New York, before settling in St. Thomas with her family. An avid reader all her life, Mary Ann enjoyed her many years of St. Thomas Public Library membership. Each year following her retirement, she had the opportunity to choose books and lead the discussion at one of the monthly Library Book Club meetings.

The estate of Mary Ann Neely has donated $1,000,000 to St. Thomas Public Library for building enhancements and library materials. Library Board Chair Greg Grondin said of Mary Ann, “They say “a life well lived is a gift to the future,” and this is her legacy: Mary Ann Neely lives on in the legacy that she leaves St. Thomas Public Library and the community.”

Friends of St. Thomas Public Library are volunteers who help raise funds for the library and promote the library as a cultural institution in the community. They began in 1994, and have so far donated over $200,000 to St. Thomas Public Library.

In addition to many other projects at the library, the Dorothy Palmer Estate donated additional funds which allowed St. Thomas Public Library to develop Creators’ Corner; a space in the library dedicated to creativity, design, and innovation