This week’s look at Cochrane history deals a bit about the town’s first, but mostly second librarian.
Elsa Thorning was born in Montreal in 1893 and moved to Cochrane in 1910 when her father, Otto, started Cochrane’s first newspaper, The Northland.
Elsa found a love of the written word while working alongside with her father. In 1917, she helped her mother, Ella, establish the first library.
Elsa became Mrs. Russell Shirley in 1922, raised seven children, and assumed the librarian duties from her mother in 1938. She did that job for 20 years. Upon her retirement she was given a life membership at the library. She died in 1963. The following year, the children’s section was named “The Elsa Shirley Memorial Library for Boys and Girls”.
While the library doors are locked during the pandemic, you can still make requests for archive material and participate in “Archives Live” every Friday at 1:30pm on Facebook.