Children's Literature Collection And Endowment Established By Teacher's Family

The family of a woman who devoted her life to teaching elementary school children has given a series of children's books to the Weinberg Memorial Library and established an endowment in her name there.

 

The Paula C. Snyder Children's Literature Collection and Endowment consists of 60 books, many of them autographed, with 40 more on order. The endowment will be used to purchase additional hooks, with emphasis on Caldecott and Newberry Award winners.

 

This is the first subject specific endowment for the Weinberg Memorial Library.

 

This provides a wonderful start up to the children's literature collection. "This is the type of endowment we want established for the future of the Library," said director Charles Kratz. He added that the collection and endowment will be especially valuable for the children's literature course taught at the University and for the curriculum materials collection for education majors.

 

Snyder, a native of Oxford, N.J., began her teaching career at St. Jane's Elementary School in Easton, Pa. After marrying her husband, Timothy Snyder, in 1969 and moving to the West Coast she taught in the Catholic elementary school system in Anaheim, Calif. The couple returned east in 1973 and she taught in the Bath. Pa., public schools, the Annapolis, Md., public schools, and the Belvidere and Allamuchy, N.J., schools. She was the elementary librarian at the Pleasant Valley School District when she died in October 1991.

 

Born July 25, 1946, the third of six children from a family that stressed education, Snyder received an associate's degree from Manor Junior College in Jenkintown, Pa., in 1967. She later earned a bachelor's degree, graduating magna cum laude, from East Stroudsberg University and a master's in library science from Kutztown University."Paula was passionate about her work. She influenced children, she touched the future, she encouraged children to read, to entrust themselves to know the world through books," said Veronica Michalowski, Snyder's sister.

 

Donations to the endowment can be made to Charles Kratz at the University of Scranton's Weinberg Memorial Library, Scranton, PA, 18510.