Library Activist, Balboa Resident Schulhof Dies

Mary Alice Yarnell Schulhof, a founding member of the Friends of UCI Library and a former assistant registrar at Orange Coast College, died Friday after a lengthy illness. She was 83.

Schulhof, who lived on Balboa Island for 59 years, was active in many organizations in Orange County, several related to local libraries. She was a founding member of a local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and an honorary lifetime member of the Friends of Sherman Garden and Library in Corona del Mar. She also served as president of the Newport Beach Elementary PTA in the late 1940s.

Schulhof oversaw the first efforts to computerize Orange Coast College records in the 1950s. She later was employed for 15 years at Ford Aeronautics in Newport Beach as the program librarian.

Schulhof was born in Meriden, Conn., in 1909 and graduated from the University of Illinois. She was a world traveler, visiting the Great Wall of China, going on a safari in Kenya and riding a Jeep through Baja California.

She is survived by a daughter, Sharon Avery of Tustin, a son, Roy Yarnell of Greenwood, N.Y., and six grandchildren.

A private memorial is planned. In lieu of flowers, Schulhof’s family requests that donations be made to Sherman Gardens, the DAR Scholarship Fund or the UCI Library.