By CHARLES L. WARNER

“What will not woman — gentle woman dare when strong affection stirs her spirit up?”

— Robert Southey, “Madoc in Wales”

In Nonie Richardson’s case, she becomes the first female chairman of the board of trustees of the Union County Carnegie Library; helps form the Friends of the Library to raise money to modernize and support the library; and puts a racist politician in his place when he tries to segregate and then shut down the library.

Mrs. Richardson moved to Union with her husband, Henry, in 1963. Shortly thereafter she joined the library’s board of trustees, eventually becoming its first female chairman. During that time she also served on a committee of the State Library Board. She said her involvement with libraries is very much a family tradition.

“My mother was very much involved with the establishment of one of the libraries in Orangeburg,” she said. “My younger sister and I used to walk back and forth to the library near our home. My whole family are readers, so I just inherited that interest in libraries.”

Established in 1903 with money provided by industrialist Andrew Carnegie, the library was for decades known as the Carnegie Free Library. It was the county’s only public library until the 1930s when the Union County Traveling Library was established through the New Deal, operating out of the basement of McClellan’s on Main Street.

The libraries remained separate until 1966 when the two were merged at the urging of the State Library Board. The merger qualified the library to receive support from the county and the state. It was not until 1971, however, that the library was renamed the Union County Carnegie Library.

During the merger Mrs. Richardson had to stand up to a politician who wanted to segregate the library. Mrs. Richardson said she told him this was unacceptable and with support from the rest of the board refused to give in to his demands. The politician then made a veiled threat to deny the library funding and get it closed. He then he learned what a gentle woman will dare when her spirit is stirred up.

“He said there was a library in Spartanburg,” Mrs. Richardson said. “I told him that I would go to every PTA in his district and tell the ladies there that he said they could take their children to Spartanburg to check out books from the library.”

Rather than face the their wrath, the politician dropped the matter.

Mrs. Richardson is also one of the founders of the Friends of the Library which was organized in 1982. The Friends’ first project was to raise money to build a new wing on the library. Mrs. Richardson said that at a meeting on May 19, 1983, the group heard from a representative of the State Library that if the Friends could raise $380,000 within a certain period of time, the project would receive a $100,000 federal grant for the project.

The Friends then undertook a building campaign fund to raise the required amount. Ground was broken on the new wing in October 1984 and the building dedicated in September 1985. The library was expanded from 2,500 square feet to 8,000 square feet at a cost of $537,985.82, most of it raised by the Friends.

Though there were several men including her husband who were involved with Friends when it was founded, most of the founders were women. Most of them were homemakers like Mrs. Richardson, a fact that she said enabled them to get involved with this and other community activities.

“A lot of the women didn’t work like they do today and we had the time to do that,” she said. “We were homemakers and you worked gratis for the benefit of your community.”

Mrs. Richardson continues to be involved with the library on a gratis basis and her decades of devotion have drawn praise from librarian Nancy Rosenwald. Mrs. Rosenwald, who hopes to work with Mrs. Richardson to develop an oral history of her memories of the library’s early years for its website, said the library has benefited from Mrs. Richardson’s friendship.

“She’s the best friend a library could have,” Mrs. Rosenwald said. “The Union Carnegie Library shines as a result of her care, love and devotion.”

Harriet Berry pointed out the Friends was organized and began fund raising during a time of economic downturn. She said the success of the Friends in supporting the library is due in large part to Mrs. Richardson’s dedication.

“We’re so fortunate to have someone like Nonie and her late husband Henry who had the vision and the concern and the willingness to go to work and elevate the importance of the library for this community,” she said. “They began raising funds to expand and modernize the library during poor economic times. They did so because they understood how important the library is to the promotion of knowledge and learning. Union County is fortunate to have Nonie.”