Torchbearers fund honors women who pioneered library services

Sara Haldeman Haly’s portrait gazes down on visitors to McCormick Riverfront Library and her name graces the building.

But it wasn’t until the 100th anniversary of the McCormick Riverfront Library in 2014 and the opening of a time capsule – containing documents commemorating Haly’s bequest of $60,000 to the nascent Harrisburg Public Library — that Karen Cullings fully appreciated Haly’s impact.

“I was amazed and grateful,’’ says Cullings, Executive Director of Dauphin County Library System. “Her gift of $60,000, which in today’s dollars is about $1.8 million, really started library service for our community.”

In honor of Haly and Alice R. Eaton, the system’s dynamic first librarian, Cullings created the Torchbearers: The Sara Haldeman Haly and Alice R. Eaton Fund.

Funding the future

The unrestricted endowment will help turn the recently acquired 27 N. Front Street – where Haly once lived — into the McCormick Riverfront complex. The three-story Front and Walnut streets home is adjacent to the McCormick Riverfront Library, which stands on what was Haly’s garden.

The Library plans to convert Haly’s home to administrative offices and community space, also freeing up more room for children’s and family activities in The Library proper. The Torchbearers’ fund, now in its growth phase, will also finance library programs and services, emphasizing resources for, about, and supporting women.

Cullings says she believes the plans would win approval from the original torchbearers.

“This is their spot,” Cullings says. “This is Sara’s house and Alice’s library.”

Remembering two outstanding women

Harrisburg social leader Sara Haldeman Haly was the daughter of Jacob Haldeman, founder of New Cumberland. Her will left $60,000 to the sputtering Harrisburg Public Library, founded in 1889. Her executors later donated the garden, used for the library building.

In a figurative sense, Titusville native Alice Eaton blew open the new library’s doors. As the first librarian, Eaton dotted the city with book collections, led the creation of a children’s room, and opened the library to garden shows, art exhibits, lecture programs, and civic clubs.

“Alice Eaton was incredible,” Cullings says. “She and Sara Haldeman Haly were instrumental in making Dauphin County Library System what it is today.”

The savvy Eaton also procured funding from the Dauphin County Commissioners and, in 1925, launched what’s believed to be Pennsylvania’s first bookmobile. The bright-red truck carried books beyond city limits, to schools countywide and summertime “library stations” hosted by farm mothers. Some of those stations survive as branches.

“These two women took the torch of providing public access to knowledge,’’ Cullings says. “They carried it long and well before turning it over to the next generations.’’

Please visit https://www.dcls.org/Endowment_Fund_List if you would like to donate to the Torchbearers: The Sara Haldeman Haly and Alice R. Eaton Fund.