The year was 1972. As a master’s degree student in library sciences, Libby Lewis needed a job. A chance assignment in Hoskins Library—then commonly known as the “Graduate Library”—put her in the path of another student worker with the “prettiest sweetest smile” named Charlie.

Charlie would ask Libby out. A yes to a date eventually led to a yes to a marriage proposal.

The love that began in the library blossomed into almost five decades of marriage and now has inspired a gift to UT Libraries to support its mission of transforming lives through learning. Libby Lewis recently established an endowment in honor of her late husband, Charlie Lewis.

“My Christian faith and my family were the bedrock and ground of my life. But UT and the Libraries was the tree that led to everything else,” said Lewis, a native of Dayton, Tennessee. “Tennessee led to Charlie, my career, and my deep love of football!”

As a gopher for the Hoskins reference department, Libby Lewis ran errands to other units. That included the print shop where fellow library science student Charlie ran the printing press, making business cards, invitations, and stationery. His smile caught her eye.

“It always made you happy to see it,” she said. “He had a wonderful sly sense of humor with a snarky smile. His snarky smile and my snarky sense of humor just clicked.”

Following marriage in the summer of 1974 and graduation from UT, the couple moved to Virginia for a librarian cataloging job at Virginia Commonwealth for Charlie and a library job at the Richmond City Jail for Libby.

“It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Lewis said. “I created the library in what had been a closet. I had a wonderful time.”

The job opened the door to a 25-year career establishing institutional libraries in prisons and mental hospitals around the state of Virginia. She eventually joined the state library, now Library of Virginia, in a variety of jobs dealing with public library services throughout the state. Prior to retiring, she directed the division charged with training public library trustees and staff, administering federal and state grants, public library statistics and assisting in library technology progress. 

“Libraries make a difference and change lives,” Lewis said, noting that she witnessed the transformation in the people she served through the various institutions where she was a librarian.

Libby and Charlie Lewis went on to have two children and “both broke our hearts by refusing to go to Tennessee for a reason I couldn’t counter—it was too big. I couldn’t get to Tennessee fast enough.”

Their son Steven went to William and Mary, and daughter Joanna went to University of Virginia, Wise. “But every time we came to tailgate, I told my children to be thankful for the graduate library. They wouldn’t be here without it.”

Charlie Lewis passed away on September 24, 2022—the day UT beat Florida. “I know he had the best seat in the house,” Libby Lewis said. The couple was married for 48 years and three months.

Her husband would be bashful that the Libraries gift is named for him. “My people are wonderful people and salt of the earth,” she said. “The idea that Charlie and I had careers and could build enough to give back feels like an embarrassment of wealth.

“But UT gave us so much, and I want to pay it back.”