Williamstown's Mehlin Connects to Community Through Volunteerism
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Volunteering allowed Peter Mehlin to find his place in his hometown.
Finding a permanent place on the walls of its elementary school was an unexpected bonus.
Mehlin is a product of Williamstown's public schools, graduating from the old town high school on School Street a few doors down from his family's home.
After earning his bachelor's degree from Middlebury College and a master's in library science from Columbia, he built a career in the Brooklyn public library system for 35 years before retiring and returning to that School Street home in 2002 … right about the time the then-new elementary school was opening its doors.
"At some point in the late spring or early summer, there was an invitation out to people who wanted to go to the old [Mitchell School] building and visit the old classrooms before they were torn down," Mehlin recalled recently. "I went to that open house, which was really nice, and met Rose Ellis, who was then the superintendent of schools. In the latest school budget, she had lost funding for the position of assistant librarian [at Williamstown Elementary School].
"She was talking to me and found out she had a retired librarian with time on his hands looking to do something useful. Rose, being the smart cookie she is, by the end of that day she had me as a volunteer. She drafted me. She had my phone number and I was all set."
Over the next two decades, Mehlin became an integral part of the elementary school and a pillar of the community at large.
"In Brooklyn, I was never a children's librarian as it were, but in almost all of my branches, I'd cover the children's room while the librarian was out or doing a program," he said. "I had a lot of experience as a substitute children's librarian.
"What I did [at WES] was largely clerical," he added modestly. "I would go in, and a class would come in and hand me my books. While the librarian was doing the program with the kids, I would check in the books and shelve them.
"When the program was done, I would sometimes help the kids find books and check their books out. It was wonderful working with the kids. I enjoyed the whole thing."
And the kids got to know Mehlin.
"With the little kids, it was always Mrs. Hyde and Mrs. Lynch [the two librarians during Mehlin's tenure] and Peter," he said. "It was a first-name basis there. I loved working with the kids.
"I'd be at Stop and Shop, and there would be a little voice behind me saying, 'It's Peter!' I'd turn around and there would be a little child with a parent who was looking at me like, 'Who the hell is Peter?' I'd explain that I knew Bobby because I was a volunteer at the elementary school and Bobby was one of my good readers."
Getting to know the children and their families was a prime motivation for Mehlin, who was looking for a way to reconnect with the community after more than three decades away.
And the elementary school was not his only opportunity.
Mehlin ran the concession stand at Images Cinema, the non-profit film house on Spring Street, worked at the visitor's desk and later as a docent at the Clark Art Institute and volunteered with the Friends group at the public library and as an elected member of the library's trustees.
"It's interesting because people in town know me in different ways," he said. " 'Oh, that's Peter, the guy who always did the popcorn at Images.' Or, 'He's the guy always out walking the two collies.' "
Or the guy who helped foster a lifelong love of reading and learning.
"When the pandemic was starting to ease up, I was having lunch with friends at Taconic, and the waiter was a tall blond boy wearing a mask," Mehlin said. "When we were seated, he said, 'Are you Peter?' He was one of my favorite kids in Side-by-Side [the pre-school program at WES], and now he was in college.
"I had so many wonderful kids pass through that I could watch grow up. And I have watched them. I enjoy seeing them when they get older. One kid who worked at the Clark as one of the greeters – I hadn't seen him since third grade. And one day, I said, 'Oh my God, you're David, all grown up.' "
Mehlin volunteered in the elementary school across the street from his home right up until the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020. In the years that followed, he had bypass surgery and a hip replacement. He says he'd love to go back now that volunteers are allowed in the school building, but he can no longer shelve books.
His presence, though, is still felt, in the form of his inclusion in a mural that was added to the library in 2018.
"Peter has volunteered at least twice a week, sometimes more, and he's made sure every year that we have new books in the library, which is amazing," librarian Sue Lynch said when the mural was dedicated. "He's amazingly dedicated to our program and our students. The connections he makes with our students is exceptional."
"That night, Sue said they wanted me to come to the meeting to thank me," Mehlin said, referring to the dedication during a meeting of the former Elementary School Committee, which met monthly in the library. "I thought she was going to just say into the record that I'd volunteered for 16 years and thank you very much. I had no idea they were going to do anything like that."
It was an unexpected honor but a fitting tribute for a person who found his next act post-retirement by doing for free what he did as a career.
It may seem like volunteering at the library was a natural fit for Mehlin, and it was, but not for the reason you might think. It was not the books that drew him to the elementary school library or his other retirement pursuits, he said.
"Libraries deal with people," Mehlin said. "Everyone thinks libraries equal books. And they do, but they even more so equal people. When I was interviewing [prospective] librarians, the kiss of death for an interview was when a person came in and said, 'I want to be a librarian because I love books.' Librarians work with people all the time. All my volunteer activities were working with people in one way or another.
"Certainly, working the concession stand at Images, it's people contact. It's a way to get to know people, to become part of the community."
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