MARTHA DAVIS SCHOFIELD
Sept. 11, 1912-Nov. 17, 2007
Martha Davis Schofield, nee Martha Harrison Davis, died on Saturday.
Mrs. Schofield was born in Goldsboro, N.C. Her twin brother, William Harrison Davis, did not survive infancy. She spent her childhood attending Goldsboro schools and graduated from Goldsboro High School in 1928. She attended Salem College in Winston-Salem, N.C. and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a teaching certificate.
She spent two years teaching in Mount Olive, N.C., before going to Columbia University in New York City to earn a degree in library science. Mrs. Schofield was a librarian liaison between a public library and the Yorkville neighborhood school in New York City. She also worked in New Jersey and in North Carolina as the children's librarian for the Greensboro Public Library. She was then offered a position as librarian at Fort Bragg Number Five with the Artillery.
Mrs. Schofield served two years at Fort Bragg and at the end of World War II, she was chosen with nine others from across the country to go overseas. In London, she was one of three librarians selected to read, index and put on catalogue cards the contents of the questions and answers from the Nuremburg Trials.
From London, she was sent to Belgium to the 13th port in Antwerp where she helped establish nine libraries for the thousands of soldiers waiting to return home.
Following the war, Mrs. Schofield was a school librarian in Tenafly, N.J., and then joined the staff of the New Jersey State Library.
In 1952, she married Dr. Edward Twining Schofield of Trenton, N.J., a library administrator for the Newark school system. Later Dr. Schofield was invited to help establish a library school at the University of Hawaii, where they lived for 10 years. They traveled extensively in the Pacific. Subsequently, they moved to Chapel Hill, N.C., where she was active in her church, a member of two garden clubs and a volunteer at the N.C. Botanical Gardens.
In 2000, Dr. Schofield preceded her in death. Mrs. Schofield is survived by one niece and four nephews; Sarah D. Parker of Goldsboro, N.C., Dan W. Davis of Atlanta, Ga., Kenneth R. Davis of Atlantic Beach, N.C., George H. Davis of San Miguel, Mexico, Richard E. Schofield of Abilene, Texas.
A memorial service will be held at The Chapel of the Cross on Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007, at 2 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to The Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, N.C.
(Pd)
Published in Obituaries on November 20, 2007 1:48 PM