A Library Born from Sisterhood: One P.E.O. Chapter’s Lasting Legacy

AT A MEETING IN 1923, then three-year-old P.E.O. Chapter FL in Bellevue, Iowa, broached the idea of establishing a public library for their community of 1,660 citizens. A committee was appointed to study the need for a library and the possibility of effecting ways and means to achieving one. The chapter contacted local business clubs and civic organizations to assist in the project.
They held a joint meeting and, with the aid of the state librarian, came up with a plan to establish a library.

A board of trustees was appointed to direct the affairs of the fledging library. The president, secretary and several members of the first board of trustees were P.E.O. sisters. Memberships in the new Library Association were set at $1 a year. Progress in obtaining funds were slow, as not many people joined the association.

However, the project moved forward as the First National Bank donated the use of two rooms on the second floor of the bank building for the library. A former Bellevue resident, John Bovard, sent a large collection of books, two reading tables and three rockers for the reading room. A local furniture store provided a rug at cost and two local carpenters made new shelving with lumber donated by the local lumber company.

The library officially opened on July 26, 1924. Volunteers, many P.E.O. sisters, kept the library open on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons and Saturday evenings. Fundraising projects kept the library afloat in the early years, and businesses and local clubs and organizations, including P.E.O., assisted in financial donations as well as donations of books.

Realizing the need for more library services in the growing community, the Library Association appealed to the city council to accept the library as a gift and to maintain it by tax support. After three appeals over the years, the Bellevue Public Library was officially opened on July 1, 1933.

The first librarian was P.E.O. Helen Nicholson, who served until 1947 and then became assistant librarian until 1960. P.E.O. Edith Roberts served as librarian from 1975 to 1983, when P.E.O. Marian Meyer was hired as the library director. Marian retired in July 2024, the 100th Anniversary of the Bellevue Public Library. Chapter FL was recognized at the Bellevue Public Library.

P.E.O. Chapter FL has been an integral part of the Bellevue Public Library, from first proposing the idea of a library in 1923, to having a P.E.O. sister as librarian, or assistant, since 1933, when it became the Bellevue Public Library. P.E.O. sisters have served on the original board of trustees as well as the board of directors throughout the years.

Chapter FL was recognized at the Bellevue Public Library’s centennial celebration. The chapter provided a display recognizing its role in starting the library and the P.E.O. sisters who have served as librarians over the past 100 years. In honor of the anniversary, Chapter FL made a donation of $100 to the library. From the idea of starting a library at a fledging chapter P.E.O. meeting in 1923, the Bellevue Public Library has increased steadily in circulation, services and users and has become an integral part of the city of Bellevue, current population 2,500. All because of P.E.O.