Vital dates

1913 – 1972 lived

Role

Librarian, Sterling Morton Library - The Morton Arboretum (1963-1969)
Library Resources Adviser, Library - The Morton Arboretum (1969-1970)
Curator of Special Collections and Reference Librarian, Library - The Morton Arboretum (1970-1972)

Biography

Mary Moulton was born in 1913. Before coming to the Arboretum as the first librarian in 1963, she attended classes given by Roy Nordine and May Theilgaard Watts throughout the 1940s. Using this knowledge, she started a small landscape contracting business and founded Thornapple Nursery in the late 1940s. While she was in the nursery business, she won first place in the Illinois Nurseryman's Assocation plant identification contest. She sold the nursery to work fulltime in landscape design in 1958.

Mary, known as Marlie to many, began working as the first librarian at the Arboretum in 1963 when the Sterling Morton Library opened. As librarian, she helped design the May Watts Reading Garden, took buying trips to Europe to grow the library's rare book collections, gave classes, invited lecturers, originated the OIKOS conferences, and started the botanical art classes. She passed away in 1972.

Source of Biography

Know Your Arboretum lecture by Carol Doty, January 17, 1990. Talk script located in collection 2000/5 Box 1, Folder 18.