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Matches in DBpedia 2015-10 for { ?s ?p "Gratia Alta Countryman (pronounced gray-sha) (November 26, 1866 – July 26, 1953) was a nationally-known librarian who led the Minneapolis Public Library from 1904 to 1936. She was the daughter of immigrant farmers Alta and Levi Countryman. She pioneered many ways to make the library more accessible and user-friendly to all of the city's residents, regardless of age or economic position. Gratia Alta Countryman was called the "first lady of Minneapolis" and the "Jane Addams of the libraries."Due to her philosophy of outreach, collections and reading rooms were established in such places as Minneapolis fire halls, factories, hospitals, and an open-air reading area in Gateway Park. Gratia Countryman was a capable leader who, over her 32 years as head librarian, helped increase the library’s scope and reach exponentially. She oversaw the building of 12 branches and a mobile library truck, she and her staff added over 500,000 volumes to the already substantial catalog, the programs she developed encouraged children to read, adolescents and young adults to continue their education, and helped adults find and hold jobs during times of war, recession and depression. Throughout her career Countryman not only belonged to various civil and social organizations but she was also the president and founder of some as well.Gratia never married but in May 1917 she took in a homeless boy named Wellington Wilson, and later was awarded guardianship of him. This was a bold move for an unmarried woman of the times. Wellington Wilson was so happy that he later changed his name to Wellington Countryman. He eventually married and had a daughter whom he named Alta Countryman after his adoptive mother. The Countrymans lived in Chicago, Illinois, and Wellington died in 1997.Gratia Countryman's eulogy summed up her life perfectly, "In her youth a library was a sacred precinct for guarding the treasures of thought, to be entered only by the scholar and the student... Her crusading zeal carried the book to every part of her city and county, to the little child, the factory worker, the farmer, the businessman, the hospital patient, the blind and the old.""@en }

• Gratia_Countryman abstract "Gratia Alta Countryman (pronounced gray-sha) (November 26, 1866 – July 26, 1953) was a nationally-known librarian who led the Minneapolis Public Library from 1904 to 1936. She was the daughter of immigrant farmers Alta and Levi Countryman. She pioneered many ways to make the library more accessible and user-friendly to all of the city's residents, regardless of age or economic position. Gratia Alta Countryman was called the "first lady of Minneapolis" and the "Jane Addams of the libraries."Due to her philosophy of outreach, collections and reading rooms were established in such places as Minneapolis fire halls, factories, hospitals, and an open-air reading area in Gateway Park. Gratia Countryman was a capable leader who, over her 32 years as head librarian, helped increase the library’s scope and reach exponentially. She oversaw the building of 12 branches and a mobile library truck, she and her staff added over 500,000 volumes to the already substantial catalog, the programs she developed encouraged children to read, adolescents and young adults to continue their education, and helped adults find and hold jobs during times of war, recession and depression. Throughout her career Countryman not only belonged to various civil and social organizations but she was also the president and founder of some as well.Gratia never married but in May 1917 she took in a homeless boy named Wellington Wilson, and later was awarded guardianship of him. This was a bold move for an unmarried woman of the times. Wellington Wilson was so happy that he later changed his name to Wellington Countryman. He eventually married and had a daughter whom he named Alta Countryman after his adoptive mother. The Countrymans lived in Chicago, Illinois, and Wellington died in 1997.Gratia Countryman's eulogy summed up her life perfectly, "In her youth a library was a sacred precinct for guarding the treasures of thought, to be entered only by the scholar and the student... Her crusading zeal carried the book to every part of her city and county, to the little child, the factory worker, the farmer, the businessman, the hospital patient, the blind and the old."".