KINGWOOD — Joel Beane, former head librarian at the Kingwood Public Library died Friday at age 80.
He retired in 2022 after 50 years of service.
During an earlier interview, Beane said he first visited a library with his older sister in his home town in New Jersey. He said after that visit he knew he wanted to be a librarian.
Beane said he was living in Kentucky when he heard there was a job opening at a library in Kingwood.
He said he watched the library change from books, magazines and microfilm to computers, internet and free wireless.
The Kingwood Public Library started in 1872 when a jail and sheriff’s residence was built on the spot where the library now stands. In 1925 the jail was moved to its current location and the library opened in 1941, in the old jail building.
Seven years later, it was moved to the top floor of the present jail building. The old jail building was torn down so the current library could be built. The current Kingwood Public Library opened its doors Sept. 3, 1968. Five years later, Beane became head librarian.
During the interview Beane said he worked a variety of jobs before becoming a librarian — everything from a clam digger to being an interpreter of Spanish for the Air Force.
“Being a librarian is a combination of interests,” he said. “I’m interested in books and in performing a public service. I wanted to help people.”
He also talked about his childhood.
“My father was a pilot and a wizard with anything mechanical. My mother was a seamstress and did a lot of sewing of school costumes for girls,” Beane said. “At one time she trained as a cafeteria operator. My parents were interested in a lot of different things and they kept scrapbooks.”
Beane said his father heard about Block Island, R.I., and wanted to go there. He said the property was called Gunners Hill because it had a small hill in the center of it. He said the kids’ camp there was called Camp Hippocampus, which is Latin for sea horse. The property was later called Harbor Kneck Farm and is now called Beane Point — Block Island National Wildlife Refuge.
“I spent 12 summers there. We’d take a ferry boat to get to the island,” he said. “We’d find bottles with notes in them from the Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institute. If you wrote back, they could study the ocean current. We kids would send our bottles back and they would send us notes and we’d tell them where the bottles started from. When my parents bought the camp and turned it into a house, I remember seeing the bottom of one of the dishes that was left there. It was made by Carr China Co. in Grafton. Little did I know I would end up in West Virginia one county away from Grafton.”
According to his obituary, Beane was born May 13, 1944, in Orange, N.J.
