Mourning Miss Amyoony, the librarian who gave north-end Halifax a voice

It was a cold day in February 1968 when a young George Elliott Clarke hesitated outside the brick walls of the brand new Halifax North Memorial Public Library. He didn't exactly know what he'd find inside, but he understood it was important. 

Fresh from the summer of love, Halifax's north end buzzed with bold ideas about peace, environmentalism, black power and feminism. Young professionals lived next door to struggling families. The neighbourhood was a cross-section of Halifax, with large black, Indigenous and immigrant populations.

The disparate worlds needed a magnet to pull them together. Her name was Adelia Amyoony. She died this week and her friends and family are celebrating the legacy of the librarian who didn't shush people, but helped them find their voices.  

Back in 1968, an eight-year-old Clarke walked inside and stared at the books.

"Miss Amyoony would have taken note of my fervent interest in reading. I remember her looking down at me and speaking to me in a very clear and warm voice to ferret out my interests and support them," he recalls. 

Inside, he might see the dynamic couple Joan and Rocky Jones delivering a stirring talk about black rights, or a tutor helping a young student master math. 

"It's no accident that Rocky Jones organized the black families meeting in the fall of 1968, which resulted in the founding of the Black United Front, at the north branch library," Clarke says.

"Miss Amyoony, as head librarian, helped make that happen."

She waived any limits to borrowing and smiled as Clarke carted ten books out in the morning, only to return them — read — that evening. 

When he was ten and had cleaned out the children's section, she granted him special passage to the adult section. That's where he found poetry.

He went onto a career in letters, winning the Portia White Prize, the Governor General's Award for Poetry and a professorship in English at the University of Toronto. In 2016 and 2017, he was Canada's Parliamentary Poet Laureate. 

Today, his poetry is etched in steel outside of the library. 

"I'll call it glasnost. I'll call it perestroika. I'll borrow Gorbachev terms to describe the impact she had on the library and making it an open-door sanctuary for the community," Clarke says. 

'We became her children'

By the time Clarke left Nova Scotia in 1980, Amyoony was already guiding the next generation. Tracey Jones-Grant, daughter of Joan and Rocky Jones, walked into the library as a young woman for a job interview with Amyoony.

"I began my career at Halifax north branch in September 1978 under the wonderful mentorship and guidance of Miss Amyoony," she says. "Everyone one of us that she ever hired, we became her children."

Those closest to her say Amyoony was a beloved daughter, sister, aunt and community mother. 

"We never wanted to disappoint her because she would just give you that look," Jones-Grant says. "Her kindness just radiated through every bit of who she was as an individual, as a woman, as a mentor, as a community mother. I just loved her."

Jones-Grant says she planned to leave the library to study science, "but Miss Amyoony must have been watching me and seeing the things I was doing. One day she said to me, 'I think you should be a librarian.'"

She brought the dean of Dalhousie University's library school in especially to talk to her.

"Because of Miss Amyoony and her mentorship and guidance, I was the very first African Nova Scotian to attend and graduate from Dal's library school," Jones-Grant says from Atlanta, where she was coaching a Nova Scotia girls' basketball team in a U.S. competition.  

Jones-Grant took over as head librarian at the north-end branch when Amyoony became manager of extension services. She says Amyoony was never a librarian who would shush people, but one who helped them find their voice.

"She could see a vision for community growth and betterment," Jones-Grant says.

That vision turned into the Captain William Spry Public Library in Spyfield and the Thomas H. Raddall Library in Clayton Park (now the Keshen Goodman Public Library), both of which she helped open.

Jones-Grant went onto a long career with the library. Today, she's the managing director of diversity and inclusion for Halifax Regional Municipality. 

Birthday cakes for employees

RCMP Sgt. Craig Smith remembers Amyoony's parents, who were Lebanese, ran a corner store in the neighbourhood. 

He had a summer job with Amyoony in 1979.

"It's not common that your boss sits down with you and says, 'Bring in your report card so I can see how you're doing,'" he says.

She also baked a special birthday cake for each of her young workers.

She provided space and support to the Black Educators Association, the Africville Genealogy Society and saw that Black History Month was first celebrated in Nova Scotia. 

Smith worked at the library for 12 years before going on to join the RCMP and write groundbreaking books including You Had Better Be White By 6 A.M. and the Ultimate African Heritage Quiz Book: Maritime Edition. 

"She embraced this community and the kind of changes that we collectively wanted to see, and she helped make them happen."

Jones-Grant last saw Amyoony a few months ago.

"We knew she was fading, but when we went in, she knew our voices, and we considered ourselves her kids," she says.

"The library is her legacy. I'm her legacy. Craig Smith is her legacy. George Eliott Clarke is her legacy. So many of us, we're her legacy."