Looking Back -- Young Chang

We looked for Newport Beach’s very first librarian, but there was some

confusion as to who this would really be. There was the person who worked

there first, and then the first with a degree, and then the first to have

trained at a library service school, etc.

So we’re going with Dorothea Wilson Sheely -- a librarian who could be

considered the best known, according to Melissa Adams from the Newport

Beach Central Library. Sheely worked in the library for exactly 30 years,

from 1947 through 1977, and left her mark on those who knew her.

LaDonna Kienitz, the community services director and city librarian

for Newport Beach, remembers learning about the history of the library

from Sheely when she first started working. Sheely had already retired

but was known for sticking around and wanting to keep up on library

happenings.

“I used to meet with her quite often,” Kienitz said. “She was just

dedicated to the Newport Beach Library.”

Sheely was tall and slender, talkative and outgoing, her friend

remembers. She used to tell stories about the Balboa branch of the

library and how people would hang out there on Saturday nights because

there wasn’t much else to do.

The Oregon native lived in Los Angeles during part of her childhood

and enjoyed visiting libraries even as a young girl, according to a

recorded oral history she did with Shirley E. Stephenson through Cal

State University, Fullerton’s Oral History Program. She was drawn to the

local librarian there -- her name was Christine Watson Douglas -- read

books for their summer reading program and wrote book reports for each of

them.

Sheely was trained at the Riverside Library Service School, in

Riverside, and worked overseas in Korea for about a year too. The

military had hired her to serve in the 24th Core Library, Kienitz said.

When she returned to the U.S., she worked at the Newport Beach

Library. She helped develop the Friends of the Library and worked on

fund-raisers for the Corona del Mar and Mariners branches.

Her husband also worked for the city -- as a Corona del Mar postmaster

as well as a photographer -- and the two traveled a lot, Kienitz

remembers.

“She was very very talkative and very outgoing,” she said. “People

liked her. People seemed to be very fond of her.”

The two lunched if not every week, every other week, when Kienitz was

working at the library and Sheely was retired. Their meeting place was

almost always La Biarritz -- today it’s The Chicken Coop -- because it

was the late librarian’s favorite restaurant.

She died about seven years ago but continued her interest in her work

through her last days.

“She worked at the library for 30 years so I think that was the basis

for her strong commitment,” Kienitz said. “She was very dedicated to the

library and the city.”

* Do you know of a person, place or event that deserves a historical

Look Back? Let us know. Contact Young Chang by fax at (949) 646-4170;

e-mail at young.chang@latimes.com; or mail her at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.