Doris Young leaves ‘big shoes to fill’ at O’Neal Library

When Doris Young applied for a position at Emmet O’Neal Library — now O’Neal Library — in 1976, it wasn’t because she aspired to a career there.

“I just needed a job,” Young told Village Living.

However, Young’s first job at the library as a page became a rewarding career that lasted 44 years.

She worked as a page for a couple of years then became a circulation clerk.

Young later became a circulation librarian and, in 1989, the circulation manager. In about 1998, she added building manager to her duties.

She also served as staff representative on the library’s building committee and as chair of the Jefferson County Library Cooperative Circulation Roundtable.

In early August, Young finally retired and was honored by the library and the city of Mountain Brook.

Her “retirement will leave a void that will be difficult to fill,” according to the O’Neal Library News. “According to her coworkers, she has always been generous, kind and fun to be around.”

The Mountain Brook City Council passed a resolution in July, read by Mayor Stewart Welch III, honoring Young for her years of service.

“Doris left big shoes to fill,” Library Director Lindsy Gardner told council members.

“We are really going to miss her,” Gardner said. “It’s really hard to imagine the library without her.”

“I’ve enjoyed working there, so it’s been great,” Young said.

Young grew up in Marengo County in the small communities of Flatwood and Catherine. She graduated from high school in Thomaston, attended Selma University and moved to Birmingham in 1970.

Young was 26 at the time she went to work at the library, with a husband and two young children. She found the job advertised on microfiche at the employment office.

“I was just looking for work,” she said. “I hadn’t even heard of Mountain Brook.”

Young became the only African-American employee of the library, and this wasn’t easy in 1976, due to the attitudes of some of the patrons, Young said.

“Some people liked you, and some didn’t,” she said. “Where I grew up in Marengo County, you were Black, and they were white, and that’s the way Mountain Brook was when I started there.”

However, Young enjoyed her job. “I decided I wouldn’t let anybody run me away, and I just stuck with it,” she said.

In addition to social change, Young has seen lots of technological change during her career.

“When I started we had no computers,” she said. “Everything was the typewriter and microfiche and the card catalog.”

Young said she’s “happy to retire” even though she liked the work.

She considered retiring a couple of years ago but decided to stay longer to help Gardner, who had just become director, settle into her position.

“I probably knew as much or more than anyone else who works there about the building itself,” Young said.

She had also planned to retire when she turned 70 last fall. “I didn’t retire then, but after COVID started, I thought I should go on and let it go,” she said. “It’s just too much.”

However, Young said she would miss her colleagues.

“I had a great group of people in my Circulation Department,” she said. “They’re all young and full of energy and smart, and I just enjoyed working with all of them.”

In retirement, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, Young hopes to go back down to Marengo County to visit family and indulge one of her favorite hobbies. “I really enjoy fishing,” she said. “It is such a relaxing thing to do.”