Itasca's first full-time professional librarian

When Judith F. Howe accepted the role of executive librarian of the Itasca Community Library in 1973, she took over a newly constructed building that had replaced one located in a former post office.

She was the village's first professional librarian, tapped to do everything from develop its collection to document its policies.

Still, she always found time for her favorite role: reading to the children.

Mrs. Howe often donned a Raggedy Ann costume before gathering the library's youngest patrons around her to read classic children's stories.

"She loved to read to kids," says her husband, Mike. Mrs. Howe passed away Sunday. The former Roselle resident, most recently of Aurora for the last 15 years, was 60.

"She always loved books," her husband says. "She was one of those people who knew from an early age what she wanted to do. She loved being a librarian, and she dedicated her life to the profession."

The couple met as teens at Richwood Community High School in Peoria. Mrs. Howe earned an academic scholarship to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she majored in history before earning her master's degree in library science.

For six years Mrs. Howe worked in the University Library on campus in Champaign, and then worked at Southern Illinois University's library, after the couple married and her husband finished his degree.

They moved to Roselle in the early 1970s, when Mike Howe started working for an environmental company in Itasca and Mrs. Howe learned of the opening for a librarian.

"Of all the places she worked, that was her favorite," Mike Howe says. "She was their first professional librarian. She was in charge and headed up the staff."

Beyond bringing the facility up to date, Mrs. Howe also played a role in the larger DuPage Library System, developing the Itasca Community Library as the business reference library for all the other libraries in the system.

"She was very professional as far as organizing everything and setting up our policy book, which we didn't have before," says Maxine Swanson, library board president. "We had been a storefront library, but now we had our own home."

Mrs. Howe worked in Itasca from 1973 to 1980, before the couple moved to Milwaukee for a job change, and where their son, Nicholas, was born.

They later moved to Stanton, Va., before returning to the Midwest and settling in Aurora.

When Nicholas enrolled at Holy Angels Catholic School in Aurora, Mrs. Howe volunteered her services in the school library. Within two years, she became its full-time librarian, where she stayed until 2004.

One year later, the couple's only son enlisted in the Marines and died during training exercises at Camp Pendleton, Calif. His mother will be buried beside him at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Ill.

Besides her son, Mrs. Howe was preceded in death by two stillborn infants, Michael and Lauren. She is survived by her husband, and brother, Gerald (Phyllis) Carr of Minooka, Ill., and many nieces and nephews.

Services have been held.