Ann Havemeyer to Play Dual Role

By Colleen Gundlach

In the 1967 musical film The Happiest Millionaire, songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman coined a new word, fortuosity, which they defined as “fortuitious little happy happenstances.” Norfolk Library has been the recipient of a bit of such fortuosity itself in finding its new director.

In the fall of 2013, the Norfolk Library Board of Trustees recognized the importance of preserving the special collections that have been entrusted to the library. Since 1889, the library has been the repository for old photographs and family memorabilia, and the board felt that it was time to commit to documenting this historical data as well as the special book collections held there.

To that end, they enlisted Norfolk Historical Society Curator Ann Havemeyer to undertake the project. Havemeyer became engrossed in reviewing the array of author-inscribed books donated to the library in the late 1800’s, including one by William Dean Howells and another by Admiral Robert Peary. It is reported that Peary, though he had reached the North Pole in 1909, had later been unable to get to Norfolk in February owing to the snow. It was details such as these that Havemeyer was able to research and document.

It is not surprising that Havemeyer felt very much at home in the library’s special collections room, and it was a bit of fortuosity that she was already an integral part of the staff there when the position of interim director became available. She capably served in this position for several months until October, when she was named permanent director. Havemeyer will continue in her role as curator of the Historical Society.

With an undergraduate degree and a Ph.D. in art and architectural history from Yale University, in addition to 20 years of experience bringing order and documentation to the Historical Society collection, she is well qualified to manage the day-to-day business of the library, though she says that the highly competent and welcoming library staff makes that job very easy.
Havemeyer has been a Norfolk resident since 1982, when she and her husband, Tom Strumolo, purchased the property known as Maplewood Farm, formerly owned by Art and Hazel Smith. There they raised their five children and now enjoy their triplet grandchildren as well.

Over the years, Havemeyer has authored several books, including Picturing Norfolk, with Robert Dance and, most recently, An Architect of Place and the Village Beautiful, a historical account of Norfolk. “I am an academic,” she says. “I am very much at home in libraries, and especially so in the Norfolk Library. I helped start the library’s Corner Club back in the 1990’s, and my children grew up among the stacks here. I feel like I have come home.”

A happy happenstance indeed.

Photo by Bruce Frisch