Today the Library solemnly notes the passing of former Library Director Lois Walker. Walker was the first director of the Bellaire Public Library located in the Mellott Memorial building, opening December 17, 1960. She held the position for 25 years, retiring in December, 1985. Lois passed away December 7, 2022.
As a memorial, we share this January 26, 1986 Wheeling News-Register newspaper article noting her retirement:
ON THE GO… People ‘n Places
BELLAIRE’S LOIS WALKER, who retired from 30 years of work as a librarian early this month, has plenty of projects to keep her busy including quilting, rock hounding and hiking.
On the agenda this spring is a hike on the New Allegheny Trail in southern West Virginia (Blackwater Falls a highlight) with her companions of last year’s trek along the Appalachian Trail — Billie Rees, Mary Ciacone and Virginia Creamer. Librarian Lois says her reading interests are broad based — fiction, mysteries, ancient history. Her real love has been reference work, finding answers to question that came across her desk at the Mellott Memorial Library and before that at the library in Bellaire High School’s basement. She says that for enlightenment she reads the sciences, particularly biology and zoology. Her hobby as a rock hound has been fed by the literature on the rock geology of Belmont County.
Tall, slender, intense, dedicated… Lois Burson Walker never minded lifting a carton of books or magazines or sweeping a floor of her domain if the necessity arose. Her home was in Newell, W.Va., and she came to Bellaire after earning her teaching degree at West Virginia University. She took the post of librarian at Bellaire High which also served as the city library and remained for nine years before resigning to go on to Carnegie Tech to get her masters of library science. Coming back, she worked for two years of the late Miss Laurel Kreig at Martins Ferry heading the Bookmobile division of the Belmont County library system. In 1960 it was a return to Bellaire when the new Mellott Memorial Library was dedicated.
Lois is married to Bellaire insurance man, James Walker, and they have a son, Douglas, who is doing graduate work at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
Best wishes to Lois in her retirement; and welcome and best wishes to her successor, John Kniesner, who joins the community from Columbus where he was with the public library system in Ohio’s capital city.
