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Margaret Roellinger Leary
Jul 02
1056 Newport Rd
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
(734) 663-7324 home
(734) 764-4468 work.
mleary@umich.edu
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1954
Margaret was born on July 2 in Allen Hospital in Oberlin. She is in her eleventh year and will be twelve soon. Her nickname is Marg or Margie. She likes sports especially baseball and swimming. When she goes to college she wants to study to be a veterinarian. She wants to do this because she loves dogs and horses. (…Nancy Williamson)
1975
My hobbies are local politics, junk mysteries, biking canoeing, sailing and sewing. I'm both a lawyer and a librarian, and my job now is assistant director of the Law Library at the University of Michigan. I also teach a class in legal bibliography. I lived in Minneapolis from 1964 to 1973 and am a member of the Minnesota bar as well as the Michigan bar.
2000
I moved to Ann Arbor in 1973, from Minneapolis, St Paul where I had lived since 1964. I'm a law librarian, and have been the Director of the Law Library at the University of Michigan Law School since 1984. I've just loved my career, which combines a supposedly timid profession (M.A. in librarianship, U of MN, 1966) with a supposedly terrifying one (J.D., William Mitchell College of Law, 1973). This is one of the largest law libraries in the world, with a collection from countries and times; a terrific staff; and an energetic and intelligent faculty and student body. I teach advanced legal research to students in the Law and Information schools, and manage a staff of about 50, about 200,000 sq ft of space, and annual budget
of $5 million. The work requires me to delve into all kinds of things, from preservation of paper to architectural planning; from labor law to teaching techniques. I like the variety, and the ability I have to influence the "big picture" in the library and the law school.
I'm also active in the community and have served on the City Planning Commission for the last four years; been president of the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate for three years; and am on the Board of trustees for my law school back in St. Paul--enabling me to return there to see friends and relatives (my brother Frank and his family live in Rochester, MN) several times a year.
My personal run at serial monogamy includes: Jim Leary (who I met at Cornell while doing my B.A. degree), 1964-69. Jim and I entered law school together and graduated together but were no longer married. Tom Miller, 1980-1994. We had three successive foster children, only one of whom stayed in touch, but she is like a real daughter to me. I've been partnered up with an architect for the last three years, but we each have our own house and a life that is separate from our life as a couple, and for now that is an extremely satisfying situation for us.
I'm fortunate to have a house that is perfect for me, built in my birth year 1942 and similar to the house I lived in at 351 Elm--where, by the way, my 86 year old mom, Harriet, still lives with two cats, still gardens, washes windows, etc. My dad died in 1993. Anyway, I have 2.5 acres of woods and gardens and absolutely love the hard physical work that requires. I even have a chain saw!
That's me, chainsaw wielding lawyer librarian.
Go back to our Oberlin High School 1960 web site.