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The Virgil and Josephine Gordon Memorial Library is located at 917 N. Circle Drive in Sealy, offering a variety of books and services to the community.

But about 35 years ago, the city of Sealy did not even have a library.

“There was a woman (Mrs. Anthony Picerno), who had a shop on I-10,” said Friends of the Library President Jean Jones, who has been a volunteer involved with the library since 1971. “She used to tell all the people she was living in a town didn’t have a library.

Picerno appeared before the Sealy City Council in August 1970 to request that a public library be established in Sealy.

Less than a month later, Frank Krampitz, city clerk and Sealy Rotary Club member, requested an ordinance creating a city library with a governing board to be comprised of representatives from each civic club or organization in town.

With a $5,000 grant from the City of Sealy, the library was created, and the community pitched in to donate the books. On September 1971, the City of Sealy Library opened its doors to the public.

“We had a lot of fun setting up the library,” Jones said. “We were trying to do the Dewy decimal system, and if we didn’t know where to put a book, we would put it in Philosophy. Someone gave us a book of Grey’s Anatomy, and we kept it in a drawer. It was so much fun.”

Citizen interest and concerns about raising money for the library prompted the creation of the Friends of the Library in May 1972. A volunteer group, comprised of Jones, Pat Thomas, Joanne Melton, Vera Smith, Joan Baker and Fran Stone, kept the library in operation until Gloria Diestel took over as a volunteer.

In early 1973, it became known that a county building would be built behind Sealy City Hall with a room available for a county library. On the appeal of library board members, commissioners court set aside funds to hire a county librarian.

The county continued to fund the library until May 1978 when the library board received a letter that included a copy of Dr. Virgil Gordon’s will.

The will bequeathed his estate to the Sealy Public Library for the purpose of “constructing, establishing, furnishing and maintaining a public library in Sealy” as long as three conditions were met. The library had to become incorporated as a non-profit corporation with a board of directors to managed the affairs of the corporation and be renamed the Virgil and Josephine Gordon Memorial Library.

Gordon was born and raised in Indiana, and after medical school, he served as a doctor in France during World War I. In 1927, he and his wife moved to Sealy, where Dr. Frank Hover was the only other doctor in town. Gordon later built the first hospital, presently The Sharing Hearts Adult Care. He practiced medicine in Sealy for 51 years until he retired.

“Uncle Doc would visit my father and mother after his wife passed away,” said Jeanne Zander, Gordon’s great-niece and vice president of the board of trustees. “He commented, ‘What am I going to do with my money?’ My dad was an avid reader and traveled the world by reading National Geographic and various things. Dad said, ‘Well, we need a library here. We don’t have anything to speak of as one.’ He thought it was a good idea, and that’s what started it.”

Gordon made arrangements to buy the land and have a building constructed, donating what was left of his money to operations and maintenance. In mid 1980, construction of the Gordon Memorial Library began, and in June 1981, the library opened its doors at its new location.

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