Humans of Swarthmore: Merrie Lou Cohen
Merrie Lou Cohen describes herself as “an ancient Swarthmorean.” Photo: Satya Nelms
I am an ancient Swarthmorean. I have lived here, I don’t know, sixty years. I lived on Amherst Avenue for years and years, and then, when my husband died, the children suggested that I look at my current house, right next to theirs. I think they might regret it, but most of the time we get along fine.
No matter how long you’ve lived in Swarthmore, it’s unclear whether you belong or not. I don’t know whether you have to be born here, I don’t know what the criteria are, but you never really feel that you’ve made it. My father was a regular army officer, so we never had a home, you know? I have a lot of South Carolina connections and some of my children live there, but Swarthmore is really my home.
I was the school librarian at what was then the Swarthmore Elementary School for 24 years. And because I knew the children so well, then I began to know the women who acted as volunteers for me, and things like that — that began to settle me in.
I had a little trouble with the school board, because I couldn’t get along with the principal of the school. Her name was Mrs. Bisbee. And she was the kind of person who would come in the library, and the children and I would all be lying down looking up at the ceiling, seeing if you could walk on the beams of the ceiling, and she would say, “Mrs. Cohen. Are those children on a lesson?” No, we were just enjoying ourselves! That’s what library was about, a good place to come to have a good time.
I wish, in these times, that there was more emphasis on the kind of library work that I did. The personal sort of thing, and not caring whether they could use a computer or not. The card catalog is never used anymore, so why should they learn how to use it, you know? I’d like to see more enthusiasm for the libraries from the faculty and the school board.
I think the Swarthmore Public Library has served children very well over the years. I just wish that the school district had that same kind of feeling. I think that children need an unreal world as well as a real world. Books are comforting that way.
