Naperville library mourns former director

Miriam Fry helped shape Naperville's Nichols Library in almost every imaginable way.

During her 34-year tenure as the library's director, from 1950 to 1984, she did everything from ordering books for the old library building at 110 S. Washington St., to helping lead a referendum push that resulted in the opening of the current Nichols 25 years ago on Jefferson Avenue.

And through it all, former colleagues say, she was a role model who made everyone who worked with her feel like family.

Now that family is in mourning. Miriam died Monday at Edward Hospital in Naperville. She was 93.

“She was an amazing woman,” said Sue Prindiville, who Miriam hired in 1979 and who now serves as the Nichols manager in a library system that includes two other buildings. “She was kind.”

During Miriam's early tenure, she literally ordered every book the library bought.

She was involved in several expansions at the old Washington Street building but by 1974 realized there wouldn't be enough space at that site to serve the growing community.

“She recognized what the future was,” Administrative Director Marcia Lebeau said, and worked tirelessly to convince voters of the need for a new facility.

And once organizers won support for a new Nichols, Lebeau said, “she had the foresight to know it was going to be somebody else's building.”

Even while doing all that, Miriam found time to bake cakes to celebrate employees' birthdays and pursue other random acts of kindness.

“I was sick once,” Prindiville said, “and Miriam brought a basket of food that was enough for two days for my whole family.”

She was very much the same with patrons, said Lebeau, who Miriam hired in 1979.

“She would always mix with the general public,” she said. “She seemed to know everyone.”

Miriam also was something of a visionary, Lebeau said. When she first arrived, the library didn't even have a telephone and by the time she left it was taking steps toward automation

Even after she retired, Miriam remained a familiar face around the library for many years.

She regularly would pick up large-print books to take to area nursing homes where she would read to residents.

The library recognized those contributions and many more years ago by establishing the Miriam B. Fry Reading Room at Nichols.

Born in 1917 in Wheeling, Miriam was a 1935 graduate of Arlington Heights High School and graduated with a degree in English in 1939 from North Central College.

After college, she moved to Detroit where her husband, Arthur, worked for General Motors. After Arthur's death in 1945, the family returned to Naperville where she raised their sons, Gary and James, as a single mom.

She began working at the library in the late 1940s and became director in 1950.

She also was a member of the Naperville Women's Club, American Association of University Women and an active member of Grace United Methodist Church.

Visitation for Miriam will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 20, at Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home, 44 S. Mill St., Naperville. Additional visitation will be from 10 a.m. until the time of funeral services at 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 21, at Grace United Methodist Church, 300 E. Gartner Road, Naperville.

“She was really a special woman,” Lebeau said. “She was extremely generous of spirit. She will be missed.”