The Adams Collection honors Churchville businessman

In memory of former resident and businessman Bob Adams, his wife Kay, has established a special collection at the Newman Riga Library. Kay, former director at the library, then known as the Riga Free Library, wanted to honor Bob's memory as well as provide material for the library community. Establishing a memorial collection provides a financial boost for the library and serves to keep loved ones in the minds of all who knew them.

Bob Adams, born in Maine, was raised in Watertown, NY. While serving in the Navy from 1942 until 1946, he met his wife Kay at Smith College. Kay, originally from Northampton, Massachusetts, had graduated from Smith and was working as a library assistant there. The attraction grew but upon his discharge from the Navy, Bob settled in Brockport and worked as a salesman in Rochester. Bob and Kay continued a long-distance relationship. His job in auto parts brought him to Churchville from time to time, where he stumbled upon the site of what was soon to become his own business, Bob's Friendly Service. In 1946, Bob and Kay were married.

After the wedding, Kay moved to Churchville and worked various jobs, including helping Bob run the station. In 1952, with her background in libraries, she was asked to open the new library that was being built in the Village Park. Kay worked as the librarian at the "Riga Free Library" for 13 years. In 1965, she was hired by the Rochester Public Library where she was Assistant Director of Special Projects for Services to the Disadvantaged.

Bob maintained his business at the garage until the mid 1960s when he was hired by the Churchville-Chili School District as head of maintenance at the high school. He retired in 1974. Kay, meanwhile, continued her career with the central library until 1986. Bob remained her biggest fan, baking lemon cakes for important library events and maintaining their home while Kay worked many evenings and weekends. Their only child, Jim, was born in 1949 and graduated from Churchville-Chili High School in 1967. Jim and his wife, Judy, graduated from Purdue in 1971 and have one son, Kelly. Judy, in keeping with family tradition, is a librarian.

Kay jokes that while Bob's garage was in business, he was her biggest library helper, with his business serving as a "bona fide" branch for the Riga Free Library, in that customers often returned and retrieved books for the library while buying gas. With two of the four corners in Churchville covered, Bob was definitely part of Kay's library world.

Bob was an avid fisherman and was known to provide "samples" of his catch to his customers. Talk about one stop shopping - stop for gas or a tune-up, pick up dinner, and drop off your library books - all at the same time. Bob's proudest moment as a fisherman was revealed when he caught a 985 pound tuna while vacationing at Prince Edward Island. For self-preservation, Kay learned how to fish and row a boat and together, they often fished in Quebec. Bob always loved the outdoors and loved ice-skating as well. A former hockey player at Watertown High School, he was unable to recruit Kay as an ice-skating partner. She was forced to be a spectator. Weak ankles and a habit of falling out of toboggans kept Kay out of most winter sports, but since turn-about is fair play, she was Bob's biggest fan as well.

Kay's work at the Rochester Public Library focused on projects and materials for the disadvantaged, including those for the visually impaired. In Bob's later years, large print and audio material became increasingly important to Bob as well. It is in this medium that the Adams Collection will be developed.

The Newman Riga Library is located at 1 Village Park in the village of Churchville, the only remaining original business at the four corners since 1952. As library memories are tangible in the bricks and mortar building in the park, so too will Bob's memory be tangible in the established collection of books purchased in this name.