Former librarian recalls days of old

Muriel Badger, who had a library career that spanned 33 years and several Glendale branches, began working with the Los Angeles Public Library in 1941 as an “intermittent librarian.”

“I went to 27 different branches as needed,” she said. “This was before World War II and I went everywhere by red car. I got there on time, but after a year, I got tired of the traveling and decided it was time to sit still in one place.

“I was offered a job with the Glendale library some time after Pearl Harbor. In those days, librarians got $100 a month and janitors got $125,” said Badger. “Librarians have come a long way.”

“Everyone knew each other. I started out on the main floor of the old library [on Harvard Street] circulating books. I took my turn working at nights, three nights a week. When it rained real hard, we would close the library early because there was a drainage problem,” Badger said.

She remembers the Christmas windows that looked like stained glass.

“They were beautiful, people came by to see them,” she said. “We had an art librarian and she designed them.”

Badger worked for the library for four years, then left to have a baby.

“I took a six-month leave, but didn’t come back until my daughter was in high school,” she said.

One day, as she was walking across the Central Library floor.

“Someone approached me and said they needed a librarian and wondered if I would come back,” she said.

Badger went on to become the first librarian at the Crescenta Valley branch, which opened in Montrose in 1961, said Marie Fish, who recently retired as assistant director of libraries.

“I knew Muriel,” Fish said, “but I never worked directly with her. Mary Alice Toomey worked with her at Montrose for several years.”

Toomey, now Grandview branch librarian, recalled that Badger was her first supervisor at Montrose.

“I began at Montrose in June 1969 along with Suzanne Bitterman, who graduated library school with me and who started as the children’s librarian a week ahead of me,” she said. “We had three librarians at that busy, large branch.”

Montrose, like the other branches, was open six days a week in those days, she added.

As a young woman, Badger was an adventurous traveler. She sailed on the Queen Mary when it was trying to break a speed record for a ship crossing the Atlantic.

“It was very rough, with swells higher than the ship,” she said. “We were the only ones at dinner. I’ve been seasick going to Catalina, but I didn’t get sick on that trip.”

Another time, she went to Cuba and spent a month there on vacation.

“This was before World War II,” she said. “I didn’t need a passport when I went, but by the time I headed home, I did need a passport because war was imminent. I didn’t know what to do.”

When they docked and were ready for departure, she heard her name, but didn’t answer.

“They mispronounced it,” she said. “I knew it was my name, but they mispronounced it, so I didn’t answer. There were some nuns on board. They took me in and I walked off with them.”

Badger retired in 1974.

“I thought I would stay home with my husband for awhile,” she said. “I’m almost blind now, a handicap for a librarian!”

READERS WRITE

Barbara Loy Rogers, who graduated from Glendale High School in 1948, remembers Sharp’s Lunch at the corner of Brand Boulevard and Lexington Drive.

“Later, it was in the middle of the block. They charged 25 cents for dinner and 10 cents more for homemade pie. I went with my parents once a month. That’s all we could afford. My father was making $20 a week when I was born.”

She grew up in Atwater and by age 5, her mother was sending her to the market. She can still recite the list of items her mother specified as she handed her a $1 bill.

“Bring home a loaf of bread, a pound of butter, bacon, milk and eggs and don’t forget to bring home the change.”

Virginia Emrey recalled that her husband, Robert, worked at Pacific Aeromotive in Burbank in the 1950s as the controller.

“One of his fellow workers was Les Littrell, who had worked for L.C. Brand when he was a young man,” she said.

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