11 Aug Mayme Snipes, Plainfield Librarian
Mayme Snipes was one of the first professional librarians to work at the Plainfield library. Hired in 1909,
she was responsible for many innovations. She introduced children’s story hour, began creating clipping and photo files, and started a historical collection. Mayme oversaw the construction of the Carnegie library on South Center Street and supervised the training of other library workers. She was instrumental in the creation of the library’s 1916 Auto Book Wagon (aka the first bookmobile in the state of Indiana) and implementing rural book service. This service not only included Guilford Township residents, but also Liberty and Washington townships.
After ten years working here in her hometown, Mayme went on to work for the Indiana State Library, the Switzerland County Library in Vevay, and the Columbia City library. She owned a cabin in Brown County, where she helped organize the Brown County library as well. Never marrying, she lived rather adventurously for a small-town Hoosier woman of her time. In 1929 and 1930 she sailed to Europe, touring gardens and villages off the beaten path in England. Then, in 1934 she took a Caribbean cruise on the Duchess of Bedford, returning from Nassau, Bahamas via plane to Miami, when air travel for recreation was still a rarity. In 1939 she moved to Bloomington where she kept busy with club memberships and visiting her Brown County cabin to host house parties. She fell ill in the fall of 1941 and died in December while visiting friends in Indianapolis.
Mayme Snipes is buried in Plainfield’s Maple Hill Cemetery.
