Submitted Photos
After 15 years of being a part of the Ashville Free Library, Libby the Library Cat passed away Tuesday afternoon.
Libby had been a part of the library since 2009, originally being brought in to help with a mouse problem. Tabetha Butler, library director at the time, said she had been looking for a cat for two years to help fix the problem when her sister called her, saying she had found one.
Libby was a throw away, and Butler and her sister found her in January, bringing her into the library. Since then, Butler said Libby paid them back in the only way she could.
“She would greet everyone who came in,” Butler said. “As soon as she heard the bell she would get up and run to the door. I even had contractors come in and she would lay in their toolbox and I had to tell them that if they greeted her she would get out of their way, and once she got her love from them she went on and did whatever Libby did.”
Butler said they were not sure how old Libby was, but at the time they found her the vet said she was probably five or six, putting her at 20 or 21 years old at the time of her passing. For the past 15 years, Butler said Libby was the queen of the library.
Submitted Photos Libby was originally brought in to the library to help with a mouse problem in 2009 and has remained a permanent fixture there ever since.
“She meant a great deal to hundreds of people,” Butler said. “What struck me the most about her was the way she was able to make children calm down. We had children that would come to the library, not because of the books, but to see the cat and she had a way of teaching them to behave.”
If a child was getting too loud or rambunctious, Butler said Libby would go hide in the adult fiction section. Butler would then tell the children that if they calmed down and sat quietly she would come back out, and Libby would do just that.
“She had a way to make children realize that if they were calm and quiet she would come back out to them,” Butler said.
Additionally, summer residents of the area who would come to visit the library would always ask to see the cat first before catching up with Butler, she said. She added that whoever was the one to throw her away back in 2009 “had no idea what they were throwing away.”
Kristina Benson, current library director, said plans for a memorial for Libby are underway, with some things still to be determined. The library is in the middle of working on an outdoor space to allow people to sit and read outside, and Benson said there will be native plants out there to form a garden which will be called “Libby’s Garden”.
Libby greeted everyone who came to the library, and meant a lot to many.
“There may also be a memorial wall put in the library,” Benson said. “I’ve had two patrons reach out and express their condolences and ask to paint a portrait of her to put on the wall. It’s to be determined right now, but there might be some paintings, photographs and other memories from patrons.”
Butler said the library may get a new cat in the spring, but that Libby was a cat that they would “never be able to replicate,” adding that she was a great ambassador for the library.
“The library was her home and she welcomed everyone with open paws,” Butler said. “She was one in a million and we will never be able to replicate her. She loved until the very end and got the peace she deserved.”