Welcome, Nancy Calhoun, Librarian

Nancy Calhoun knew that her love was leading her down a road less traveled. For thirty-five years she researched her ancestry with determination. She just never expected to marry her love with her career.

Then one day she heard about the job opening in Muskogee. Undaunted by the possible damage to her ego if she was not accepted, Nancy submitted her resume anyhow. When she learned that the job was hers, Nancy made all of the adjustments Americans are famous for. She was changing her career, her home town and her co-workers.

Nancy's interest in family history came easily. Her father was born in Virginia and everyone knows that Virginians take great pride in their history. After all, Jamestowne just celebrated 400 years of settlement. Nancy heard her father frequently talk about history and the people who made it. From an early age she took it for granted that history was everywhere.

In college, Nancy majored in English and history. She worked twenty years in the newspaper industry and raised a family. During this period she worked for both of the Chickasha newspapers.

Her favorite work was the summer she helped the US Department of Commerce take the census in 2000. The experience was invaluable later when she would be searching for an ancestor on a much earlier enumeration. She came to understand the problems census takers must have faced one or two centuries ago here in America. She said she was thankful that she didn’t have to conduct the census from horseback!

Nancy worked two years in the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. She was an evening supervisor in the library located in Chickasha. She vividly recalled the night a student came to her with the news that there was a drunk asleep in the flower bed outside. Her first thought was "Now what?"

Nancy has walked the rows of Muskogee library's shelves containing genealogy and local history. She keeps discovering new volumes or magazines that she wants to explore for her own research. Her excitement picked up when she saw the Texas birth and death indexes on microfiche. She used to drive to Austin to look at them.

Nancy's great-uncle conducted years of research on her father's side of the family. This beginning gave Nancy a head start.

Muskogee library patrons also get a head start. They will be able to benefit from Nancy's experience of thirty-five years of research and writing.