Gertrude Finney, legendary White Center head librarian and community volunteer, died Tuesday, Jan. 4 at the age of 100 years, three months.

“She was an incredibly sweet woman,” Robinson Newspapers Publisher Jerry Robinson said upon hearing about her death. “She never said an unkind word about anyone.
“She was a dear friend.”

The Times/News has been publishing her diary entries, detailing life in early White Center.
Mrs. Finney moved to the Dumar Hill area of White Center in 1924 with her family and graduated from Highline High School in 1928.

Shortly after World War II, Mrs. Finney moved with her husband, Roy, to a house her mother had found them.
She started working part-time at the old White Center Library, tucked in a space under the White Center Fieldhouse steps on 104th Avenue Southwest. Mrs. Finney became the head librarian after the work got too much for her predecessor.

Mrs. Finney recalled those cramped beginnings.

“You entered on the north end of the building under a sign that said, ‘Ladies Restroom’ under the front porch. We wanted an outside entrance and raised money with book sales, coffee sales, bake sales and we saved newspapers and stashed them under the stairway. Then, we carried the papers to our cars—they were filled up with almost a ton of paper—and we sold it as scrap.”

Mrs. Finney reigned from a central counter. A small white rubber football with a slot cut in the top served as the fine piggybank for books returned late. While many fines were not paid, Mrs. Finney said most of the books were returned.

Dealing with rowdy boys was part of the head librarian’s job.

One time, she had a problem with boys throwing a basketball down the hallway into the library.
“I used to throw it back out,” Mrs. Finney said. Then I stopped. They threw in four balls. And I did not throw them out. I told them they would lose their privilege of using the library if they kept throwing the balls and they stopped and never did it again.”

Another time she leapt into a melee involving several boys pummeling one boy outside the library doors.
She grabbed the kids by the hair and separated them, ending the fight.

“They kicked me, but I was in the fight with them,” Mrs. Finney remembered.

Mrs. Finney was also very active in the community, including planting flowers in the middle of downtown White Center and raising money for community causes, especially the library.

She and Roy raised one son, Glenn, who served as circulation manager for the White Center News and later became a structural engineer.

Mrs. Finney worked for nearly 30 years for the King County Library System.
At the time of her death, Mrs. Finney was a resident of an assisted living facility in Bellevue.

At Mrs. Finney's request, there will be no memorial service.