Marie Seeger: For years, we did not have a library. I remember how thrilled I was when they started having the school library open in the summertime.

That was a real treat.

I remember when the first public library opened in Cary. It was upstairs in one of the older buildings in downtown Cary. My daughter and I would go there together. They didn’t have many books, but it was a big beginning for us to have a public library.

They also had the bookmobile which came in the summertime back when we were in school as teenagers, in the mid- to late-forties.

Daphne Ashworth: There was a real need, we felt, for a library. I was a member of the Cary Junior Woman’s Club, and I was one of the presidents. We were able to establish a small library in a building in the parking lot of today’s Ashworth Village. At one time, there was a small wood building there that was owned by Waldo Rood. Waldo was the mayor of Cary at the time.

Ralph Ashworth: When the first library was in that wood building, it was upstairs over a little dress shop.

Then we outgrew that space, and we moved it to Dr. (John Pullen) Hunter’s office building.

The Serendipity building was also the library at one time. It went from that little building to the new library building that was built on Academy Street. After that, the Town of Cary took it over.

At first, it was run by the Junior Woman’s Club. Then they got the county to take it over. Then the library truck would come by and change books. Wake County had the bookmobile, and they’d come and help.

Daphne Ashworth: Margaret Sherwood was our librarian for so many years, and she was so good. She was excellent.

Jean Mitchell: I was in the Junior Woman’s Club, and we started the first library. At one point it was in Serendipity.

It was also upstairs of a doctor’s office building, but the doctors weren’t in those offices anymore. We just started with a few books on the shelf. Then, of course, the county started giving some money.

But Cary didn’t have a library until the Junior Woman’s Club started it.

That was a good thing.

Cary’s Heritage is taken from the book, “Just a Horse-Stopping Place, an Oral History of Cary, N.C.”