ETTA M. NEWELL ASST. LIBRARIAN EMERITUS

Miss ETTA MATTOCKS NEWELL who died at Hanover April 3, served Dartmouth College, through the Library, with distinguished efficiency for twenty-five years; and everybody liked her. She came to the College Library at a time when it was not too well organized, and, although without previous library experience, her keen mind, tact, and willingness to labor at routine enabled her to get things going in the right direction. When I became Librarian, in 1912, she had been eighteen years on the staff. She knew the contents of the library better than anyone else. Her remarkable memory enabled her to do efficient reference work, and she had an uncanny ability at finding misformation without many of the bibliographical aids now available. She had a delightful, kindly humor, and richly appreciated the foibles of students and faculty. People liked to come to the desk, when she was there, for she served them with eager sympathy, quick intelligence, and that smile and chuckle of hers which were so appealing. She had an independent mind, and formed strong opinions, but never obtruded them. I soon learned that they were usually sound, and through all those early years of my work at the library I found her advice invaluable.

When she retired it was a shock, for she was still young in mind and manner. It did not seem possible that she was sixty-five. And we had lost a personality. She had always lived at the Hanover Inn, and the College made it possible for her to continue. There for twenty years more she stayed, a familiar and beloved figure. She liked people and they liked her. She read widely and talked well; watched the passing college scene and commented with gentle humor. She was a famous source of good stories. Fundamental in her life were the love of the great poetry of the last century and an inward religion.

She was born in Lyndon, Vermont, September 16, 1853, youngest of the seven children of Dr. Selim and Emiline Denison Newell. Dr. Newell, who soon moved to St. Johnsbury, was a physician of more than local repute. After an education at St. Johnsbury Academy, and experience in a variety of positions, Miss Newell was appointed to the staff of the Dartmouth College Library in 1894. After serving for twenty-five years as Assistant Librarian she resigned in 1919, and thereafter lived in Hanover, the only woman on the College "emeritus" roll. Her death, after a long illness, occurred in her eighty-sixth year, on April 3, 1940.

Miss Newell was appointed by President Tucker, a fact of which she was proud, for his personal appointments were notably successful. When she retired, Dr. Tucker, himself in retirement, with characteristic thoughtfulness wrote her a letter from which the following is quoted:

"Your organization of your department, especially through the training of your assistants, as they came and went, made the service prompt and efficient. Your own presence at the counter gave assurance to every student that he was a welcome visitor.

"Within the period of my knowledge you always kept in advance, by your methods, of the growth of the Library. As I recall the general development of the College at that time I want to thank you for your part in the enthusiastic struggle with insufficient means.

"It is a very great pleasure to us all to know that you are to make your home in Hanover for a considerable part of each year. You are too closely identified with our social life, and hardly less with that of our visitors at the Inn to allow your withdrawal from the community to follow your retirement from the service of the College."