Time-travelling librarian saves the day

The libraries of the world are full of lost stories. Stories of love and betrayal, adventure and ennui, beginnings and endings. Books go into libraries but that doesn't always mean that they are read. They may languish on the shelf for decades, unloved and eventually, lost in the stacks. It's ironic then, that some of the stories that are often the most missed and then eventually lost are those of the librarians.

I want to tell you about someone that maybe should mean more to you, but you don't know who she is because no one has ever really told her story. This person's name? Era Boswell. Let that name just sit with you for a minute. Back when Texas Woman's University (TWU) was still Texas State College for Women (TSCW), the library had a librarian named... Era Boswell. That name conjures images of grand adventures through space and time, protecting the fabric of reality with a few well-placed library books.

The truth, however, is much more quiet. But I should probably explain why I think she's important, in case the sheer fact of her being a librarian with a bad-ass name isn't enough.

In my job at the TWU library, I work in digital services where I upload scanned theses and dissertations into our repository. I work with a a lot of older material, including items from TSCW. As I was entering metadata for these items I began to notice that, with overwhelming regularity, these grad students from the 1930s and 1940s always made sure to thank their school librarians for all their help, assistance, and guidance. Era appears to be the one that really stood out, though, as she is the one that is thanked personally, over and over again. Even her own sister, Cara Boswell, who wrote a stunning thesis entitled " Mary Wollstonecraft: A Chapter in the History of Radicalism in English Literature", thanked her sister for her hard work.

Trying to find information about Era Boswell, however, has been all but impossible. It seems that, though the original librarians were deeply appreciated by the students, the people that they were was lost and forgotten, even in their own library. We have an entire floor of the library dedicated to women and their accomplishments, but somehow, some of the most important women in the school have been allowed to fade away.

When I first became aware of Era, I searched the school's databases as well as Google. The only things I ever found about Era were a snippet from an old edition of the Lasso and the location of her grave in Red River County.

Era's sister, Cara, was slightly more accessible as she was an English teacher at Denton High School for decades. She received her Masters degree in her 30s, and according to census records, she lived with her sister, and a younger woman named Rosamund Deutsch. The census data places them in a home somewhere very close to TWU. She was also a director of the local Knife and Fork Club. 

And that is it. That is the sum total of information available about a woman who influenced the lives of countless TSCW/TWU students. A woman who was listed by name in thesis after thesis after thesis, a woman who devoted her life to her students, and no one remembers her. I find that to be unutterably sad and I hope, that by speaking her name again, that she will be remembered, at least for awhile and in this way, her story won't be so lost anymore.