Mount Prospect library is her legacy

On a trip with her family to Washington, D.C., in the reading room of the Library of Congress, Mary Jo Hutchings was in tears.

"She couldn't pass a library, even in a town she had never been in, without getting emotional," said daughter Donna Steele of St. Charles. "She had a passion for libraries."

Mrs. Hutchings, who died Thursday at 88 after having Alzheimer's disease for about four years, shared her love of reading and learning with the community as director of the Mount Prospect Public Library and as an active community volunteer.

"She made people in Mount Prospect love their library," said daughter Mary Hutchings Reed of Chicago.

Mrs. Hutchings served as the director of the library from 1966 to her retirement in 1981. The first director to have a professional degree in library science, Mrs. Hutchings planned the building of a new library, increased the collection, expanded hours to include nights and weekends, and created the circulation of art, videos and music.

"She brought a modern library to the community," said Marilyn Genther, the library's executive director.

Mrs. Hutchings was especially interested in the reference section of the library.

"The library in the days of Mary Jo Hutchings was a major factor in the education of the young," said Sam Hess, who was president of the library board during most of Mrs. Hutchings' 15-year tenure as director. "In that sense, she felt her responsibility was to make this reservoir of knowledge in Mount Prospect a place where young people especially would develop creative thinking."

After her retirement, Mrs. Hutchings served three terms as the president of the Mount Prospect Women's Club, volunteered with the Mount Prospect Historical Society and was a member of the Friends of the Library.

"The greatest lesson she ever taught me was that to achieve happiness, you have to look outward and serve other people," Steele said.

Born Mary Jo Calnan in Ireland in 1919, she was separated from her family when her mother died and her father, who was in the Royal Navy, could not care for his four children. Mrs. Hutchings moved to Lake Forest in 1928 with her aunt and uncle, her foster care parents.

In 1983, after years of thinking her siblings were dead, Mrs. Hutchings was reunited with her brother Paddy Calnan when an American visitor to England helped Paddy Calnan get in touch with her. The siblings visited each other often until Calnan's death in 1993.

Mrs. Hutchings attended high school at Holy Child Academy in Waukegan, and received her bachelor's and advanced degrees in library science from the University of Illinois in 1941.

She lived in Crystal Lake with her husband, LeRoi, whom she married in 1949. They moved with their daughters to Mount Prospect in 1965.

She loved Ping-Pong, animals, music and reading to her children, which Reed said influenced her career choice as a novelist and lawyer and Steele's as an actress.

In addition to her husband and daughters, Mrs. Hutchings' survivors include her grandchildren, Amy Steele, Sarah Steele and Peter Steele.

A funeral Mass will be held 10:30 a.m. today at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, 453 Pierson St. in Crystal Lake.

Instead of flowers, donations can be sent to the Mount Prospect Public Library or the Freedom to Read Foundation of the American Library Association.