by Gary Dean Gardner, Independent Scholar
Born Nona Blandfield on 14th November 1887 near Leitchfield,
Kentucky to Methodist parents Sarah Jane Hart and James Harvey Blandford,
members of Summit United Methodist Church, Hodgenville’s Nona Stierle is best
known perhaps as our county’s first librarian.
An outreach of the Ladies’ Lincoln League, our first LaRue County Public
Library had its austere beginnings in the back room of Mrs. Stierle’s bakery in
downtown Hodgenville. Long a member and
active supporter of the group, Mrs. Stierle and the League became challenged to improve this community service by a scathing article
making fun of the women’s meager lending library behind the bakery counter. The New York writer expouned upon the widespread ignorance of our local children and the need for
true public library, humiliating the Ladies and the entire county. The embarrassment
brought by this negative national attention spearheaded the move to raise
money and establish a proper library.
No longer the
part-time librarian, Nona Stierle nonetheless was a fervent supporter of the
cause, and worked diligently to see the dream of a respectable library come to
fruition. Their accomplishment was
heralded in the local paper, “Hodgenville.
Ky., Feb. 12. 1935 — A long- fostered project of the Ladies' Lincoln League was
due to materialize here tonight with the dedication of the new $11,500 Lincoln
Memorial Library. A program, in which leading citizens of Larue County planned
to take part, was arranged under the direction of Mrs. D. B. Munford. president
of the league. Entertainment on the program includes singing by a double
quartet consisting of Mesdames C. B. Funk. LaRue, Clara Walther, Nona Stierle.
Dr. Shacklette. Ollie Lyons, J. R. Wil-son and Edward Elliott, and a solo whistling
number by Mrs. Hugh Fulkerson.”
Prior to coming to Hodgenville, Nona Blandford had married George H. Stierle (3 JAN 1879- 7 JUNE 1921) in Grayson County. George was a baker by profession and had established a shop in Leitchfield where the family resided in 1910. For reasons unknown, but perhaps due in part to the early death of their young son, the couple, along with their daughter Sarah and Nona’s mother came to Hodgenville in 1912 to operate a bakery here. The couple had 6 children, they being Anna Mae (1912-1993), George Jr. (1910-1911), Helen (1914-1987), Martha (1917-1966), Winona (1919-2002), & Sarah (1908-1974), all of whom, but for baby George, were reared in the Methodist Church family at Hodgenville.
Of all the children, the best remembered and loved was surely “Miss Sarah”, their eldest child. Never married, “Miss Sarah” was the surrogate mother to hundreds of LaRue County children during her memorable career as an elementary school teacher. She clothed & fed countless needy children out of her own pocket in a time long before any community outreach programs were fathomed. She and her entire family rests in Red Hill Cemetery.
George Stierle’s
life was cut short prematurely, but as mentioned his widow Nona continued to
run his bakery which she expanded to incorporate our fledgling County
Library. George, the son of Rudolph
Theodore Stierle Sr. and Marie Magdalena, was in reality named Heinrich George,
having been born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany and emigrating from there with
his parents, four brothers & two sisters on the S. S. Trave, arriving in New York at 26 April 1889. The family made
its way to Louisville by 1910, where Theodore worked as a cabinetmaker making
church furniture. It might be surmised
that George was trained in Germany as a baker.
Surely Lutheran by birth, it seems rationale that he would make the
conversion to Methodism. He was a proud member of B. R. Young Lodge #132 of Hodgenville.
