James Moore Saunders (1891 - 1957)

Born 15 May 1891 in Pulaski, Giles, Tennessee, United States

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Died 10 Jul 1957 at age 66 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Elizabeth Marty [send private message]

Biography

(written by his daughter Elizabeth Jane Saunders Marty)

BIRTHDATE: James Moore Saunders was born on May 15. 1892. When Jim needed a birth certificate for his employment, his doctor wrote a letter certifying that he was born on May 15, 1891, a year earlier. He may have started claiming that he was a year older than his actual birthdate when he got a marriage license in 1910.

James Moore Saunders, nicknamed Jim, grew up in the town of Fitzgerald, Georgia, a new retirement colony established for veterans of both the Confederate and Union armies. Because of Union pension money, Fitzgerald was a very wealthy town and even had an opera house seating 1200 people. An article published in 1896 noted that the town had grown to a population of 7000 during its first six months but as yet there were not any schools. It was Jim's father who took on the task of setting up for Fitzgerald a public school system, becoming both principal of the high school and school superintendent.

1900 CENSUS: On June 8, 1900, James M. Saunders is listed in the town of Cordele, age 8, date of birth May 1892.

EDUCATION: Jim came from a family of ship builders, sailors, and educators. His mother's brother was an admiral, and it was her dream that Jim would one day be a naval officer. But Jim did not want to join the navy. He was more interested in history and literature. At home in Fitzgerald he soaked up all his father could teach him. He also spent most of his childhood summers at Randolph Macon College in Virginia where his Grandmother and Grandfather were both college professors. His Aunt Viola, who lived with the family after her husband died, had studied in Berlin and Paris. She encouraged Jim to study and to travel. In the summer of 1905, his parents sent him to travel in France with his grandmother and uncle.

After Jim returned from France, his parents considered him too advanced for the local high school and enrolled him in the North Georgia Agricultural College, a branch of the University of Georgia in Dahlonega, Georgia, where he was an outstanding student. The North Georgia Agricultural College was a military college and Jim had regular military training under Captain E. J. Williams of the U. S. Army. During the summers of 1908 and 1909, Jim's mother, planning a Navy career for Jim, sent him to the Severn Preparatory School near Annapolis, Maryland, to study for the entrance exam to the Naval Academy. His parents found a special boarding house for him, run by a lady from Quebec, where Jim could continue to practice speaking French. He passed the entrance exam to the Naval Academy, and he also met Norma Franklin, who would become his first wife.

At the end of the summer of 1909, Jim returned to Fitzgerald for his final year at Dahlonega. In September of 1909, Jim received an appointment from the governor of Georgia as a Second Lieutenant in the Georgia National Guard.

DEATH OF FATHER: Jim's father died suddenly on December 10, 1909. Jim told us that at 17 his entire world collapsed around him. The family was plunged into a severe financial crisis. Jim left the college at Dahlonega and tried to keep up his father’s insurance company.

1910 CENSUS: In May 1910, James Saunders is listed in the town of Fitzgerald, age 18, selling insurance.

Since he had been accepted at the Naval Academy, everyone in the family advised Jim to return to Annapolis for his plebe summer in 1910. Although it was not his dream to become a naval officer, he had fallen in love with Annapolis, Maryland, spending many happy hours sailing and exploring the little creeks and rivers around the Chesapeake Bay, and Norma was there. His mother sold the insurance business to a friend in Fitzgerald, and Jim returned to start his four years of college in Annapolis.

Very soon after Jim returned to Annapolis, however, he ran away from the Academy to marry Norma Franklin. A midshipman had to wait until two years after graduation to marry, and once Jim and Norma got back together, they decided that they could not live without each other. Jim told me that at 17, he was so much in love with Norma that he would have abandoned the entire world for her. Jim took his bride to his home in Fitzgerald.

Giving up four years of free college education at the Naval Academy was big news at the time, and his going over the wall was printed in the New York Times. Even Jim had a hard time believing he had done it when he looked back on his youth. His mother never forgave him.

Soon, Jim and Norma left Fitzgerald for good to make their own way in the world. Jim's first job was in Tampa, Florida, as a personal secretary to the President of the G. Norman Baughman Company, which provided equipment for the early automobiles. Jim told many funny stories about how he made up his own shorthand as he worked during the day, while learning proper shorthand by attending business school in the evening. Jim very much admired Mr. Baughman, He did well at the job and learned a lot about community service and effective business practices from an amazing man. Jim's wife Norma, however, missed her mother and wanted to go back to Maryland.

In October 1912 at the age of 20, Jim found a secretarial job in the Annapolis area, at the Crown Oil and Wax Company, and also worked as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. The early marriage did not last. In 1915 Norma left Jim to return to her mother, and the couple divorced in 1920. Jim next married our Mother’s sister Grace Adams, and then later married the mother of all his children, Dora Evelyn Adams.

LIBRARY CAREER: Libraries were important to all the teachers in the Saunders family. The sister of Jim's aunt in Decatur, Illinois, was one of the few women in the country serving as a city librarian, which was still principally a man's profession. While in Annapolis, Jim had spent a lot of time at the Naval Academy Library. There he met Professor Arthur N. Brown, the librarian of the U. S. Naval Academy Library. He had no children of his own and took Jim under his wing. Professor Brown, impressed by the breadth and depth of the young man's knowledge, became Jim's mentor, the father that he had lost when he was a teenager. He organized for Jim a detailed course of study in languages, math, science, history, and the arts, and encouraged him to apply for a job as cataloguer at the library. No one in his life was more important to Jim Saunders than Professor Brown. To his last day, Jim kept on his desk a picture of Professor Brown in a little silver frame.

In April 1915, Jim was appointed to the job of cataloguer at the salary of $900 per annum. He always told us that he found then what he wanted to do for the rest of his life - he would be paid for reading and studying.

Jim distinguished himself right away at the library. He was immediately assigned by Professor Brown to assist Librarian R. J. Duvall. Together, they developed a complete reorganization of the cataloguing system at the library. The entire proposal was approved and accepted except for one small clause about the color of the walls. Jim was rapidly promoted. He had started at $900 per annum but soon doubled that salary.

In 1917, soon after the United States entered the First World War, Jim requested leave from the Academy to attend Officer's Training Camp and enter the Army. He was supported by Professor Brown, but his request was disapproved by the Superintendent of the Naval Academy, and Jim even received a letter from Franklin D. Roosevelt stating that he could best serve his country at this time by helping train the naval officers at the Academy.

Because of his wide knowledge and his skill in dealing with people, Jim acted as a judge for the Naval Academy Debate Club. As the Research Librarian, Jim guided all the midshipman through their work for the senior year research papers. He got to know all the seniors very well, including Jimmy Carter and Ross Perot. When Jim retired in 1957, the Superintendent of the Academy pointed out that 80% of all the graduates of the US Naval Academy had benefitted from his guidance in their studies.

1920 CENSUS: James Moore Saunders is listed in the town of Annapolis as a librarian at the Naval Academy, living in a small boarding house with three other professors.

Jim Saunders found time for many varied pursuits in spite of the fact that he, like most others, worked six long days each week. He belonged to a lot of clubs, including the University Club and the Chess Club. He was also very active in community work, serving many years as President and Secretary-Treasurer of the Homewood Association, the suburb of Annapolis in which we lived. During the Second World War, he served as an air-raid warden.

Jim did a lot to help people in the community. It seemed to us that he knew everybody in town. He often played the piano for the patriotic gatherings and the community sings. Once when I was in elementary school and checking out a book from the old Annapolis Public Library, a lady there told me "Without your father, there would have been no library." She explained how Jim had worked with the Ladies Library Association to get the public library started in Annapolis.

Soon after he started working at the Library, Jim bought a two-toned Stieff mahogany baby grand piano, which had been custom made by the Shaw Piano Company of Baltimore for a lady who changed her mind about the purchase. The piano company gave Jim a special price, but he still had to pay $12 a month for many years, more than his rent at the time, but it was well worth it to him. In the 1920s and 1930s Jim had a small orchestra called the Vagabonds. Many of the members played in the Navy dance band, and all were affiliated with the Naval Academy. Even after the Vagabonds disbanded, some of the men would get together for jam sessions at our house. We children were always fascinated to watch the orchestra members rehearse. Their theme song was "I’m Just a Vagabond Lover."

1930 CENSUS: James M. Saunders is listed in the town of Pasadena, Maryland, age 40, working at the US Naval Academy as a cataloguer.

Jim Saunders loved foreign languages. He had learned French and German as a child and continued to study foreign languages throughout his life. When foreign visitors who spoke French, German, Italian, or Spanish came to visit the Naval Academy, it was Jim who gave them a tour of the facilities, and they often ended up at our house for dinner, sometimes to Mother’s surprise.

Professor Brown had been able to help Jim with classical Greek, but to learn modern Greek, in 1916, Jim boarded with a family that had just moved to Annapolis from Greece. He helped them with English and they taught him to speak modern Greek. Some twenty years later this knowledge turned out to be very useful to him. He was able to act as a translator for two men from Greece who ran a restaurant in Annapolis and were facing a deportation hearing because their papers were not in order. This was the restaurant where Jim met friends every morning for a cup of coffee, so he drove the two men over to the immigration building in Washington, D.C. They were able to return that evening with the legal authorization to run their restaurant.

1940 CENSUS: James M. Saunders is listed in Annapolis, Maryland, age 47, working for the U.S. Government as a librarian.

Under the guidance of Professor Brown, Jim had become an accomplished scholar. He was well-read in many fields because of his career as a research librarian. But the history he learned from the from the Civil War veterans in his childhood home town of Fitzgerald, Georgia, led to a side career for him.

He had grown up among men who had been at all the famous Civil War battles, Jim had heard first-hand accounts of the Civil War told by veterans from the South and by veterans from nearly every Northern state. Recounting the battles was the favorite evening activity of the retired veterans. Few people had such a chance to hear about the Civil War from both perspectives. Jim soaked up all the tales as a child, and retained his keen interest for his en trire life. and this was always the historical period that interested Jim the most.

Jim read everything he could on every battle and all the personnel. He also drove our whole family around Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania to visit as many battlefields as he could find. He became well-known for his knowledge in this field. Many people writing books or articles about the Civil War sent Jim questions about the conflict, and even sent him copies of old photographs to obtain his help in identifying the battlefield or the people pictured. This was long before the days of computers, but Jim had a well-organized mind and, of course, he also had the immense resources of the Naval Academy library to assist him.

1950 CENSUS: James M. Saunders is listed in Annapolis, Md, age 57, working at the Naval Academy as a librarian.

Perhaps the most important and consuming of Jim's interests was the growing field of aeronautical engineering. Jim had always been interested in anything to do with aviation, especially the new fields such as jet aircraft, missiles, and space exploration. When the Air Force Academy was being set up, he recognized that no existing classification system could work for such a highly specialized library and Jim set about to develop an entirely new system for cataloguing aeronautical technical literature. This pioneer work, the Saunders Classification Schedule in Aeronautical Art and Science, was adopted by the Air Force Academy in 1954. It was widely praised in the field. One article states that it was used in library schools as “an example of the type of highly expandable, far-reaching classification system needed in an era of rapid development in technology.” Most of the Air Force Academy's 250,000 books were catalogued under the Saunders system, and the system has been used by many other libraries which have large holdings of aeronautical materials. For the development of his schedule, the first such schedule that had ever been done, Jim Saunders received his second Meritorious Civilian Service award from the U. S. Navy in May of 1956.

It was while Jim Saunders was working on this classification system that he discovered he had lung cancer. In November of 1955, he had one lung removed. He lost a lot of weight while he went through very painful radiation treatments, but he fought back courageously, returned to work, and regained almost all of his previous strength.

In April of 1957 James Moore Saunders retired from the US Naval Library after receiving the news that the cancer had returned to his remaining lung and was inoperable. He had remained at the Naval Academy Library for 42 years, achieving the position of Associate Librarian, with a rank of GS-18, the top of the three super-grades, the highest possible GS ranking.

He lived only three more months, dying on July 10, 1957, with his wife and three of his children, Naomi, Betty, and Bill, at his side, and one son, Bob, on his way. Jim refused all pain killers during his final days at the hospital. He said he preferred to be as alert as possible to enjoy the last hours he had with those who loved him, for of all his accomplishments there was nothing that brought him so much pride and happiness as his family. He spent his last three days comforting and trying to inspire those who would grieve for him. He never once mentioned his pain or discomfort. The nurses said they had never seen anyone in so much pain be so cheerful and so brave. The final words of Jim Saunders were "Good-bye, Bob" - these being whispered to his son in the Air Force, who had been delayed by terrible weather while desperately trying to get from Texas to the hospital in Baltimore.

Sources

• 1900 US Federal census, Dooley County, GA
• 1910 US Federal census, Ben Hill County, GA
• 1920 US Federal census, Anne Arundel County, MD
• 1930 US Federal census, Anne Arundel County, MD
• 1940 US Federal census, Anne Arundel County, MD
• 1950 US Federal census, Anne Arundel County, MD

• Death certificate.
• Letter from Doctor about date of birth
• Conversations with Jim's mother about his birthdate
• Conversations with Jim's sister about his birthdate
• Personal recollection of events witnessed by daughter, Elizabeth Saunders.

• College and Research Libraries, Vol. 17 No. 5 pp. 96-98
• "Fitzgerald, GA: The Colony City," The South Illustrated, April, 1896, Atlanta, GA.