Spradling, Mary E. Mace
(born: 1911 - died: 2009)Mary E. Mace Spradling was born in Winchester, KY, the daughter of Mynor J. and Ella Nora Travis Mace. Mary Spradling was the librarian at Lynch Colored School in the 1930s and teacher-librarian in Shelbyville in the 1940s. She chaired the Library Conference of the Kentucky Negro Educational Association in 1950, and was a librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library. Spradling left Kentucky in 1950 and would become the first African American professional librarian with the Kalamazoo Public Library. She also established the Alma Powell Branch Library in Kalamazoo. She retired in 1976, and in 1998 donated her personal library of 28,000 volumes to the Kalamazoo Valley Community College Library. Spradling was the author of "Black Librarians in Kentucky" [in The Black Librarian in the Southeast, ed. A. L. Phinazee], and of the reference volumes, In Black and White. Mary Spradling was the wife of Lewis Spradling (1905-1964). For more see Who's Who Among African Americans, 1975-2006; A Biographical Directory of Librarians in the United States and Canada, 5th ed.; and "Many lives enriched by Mary Spradling," Kalamazoo Gazette, 01/30/2009, Editorials section.
