James C. Myers

James C. Myers, 94, science librarian and WW II veteran, died November 7th at his home in Tallahassee of pneumonia.

A service will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tallahassee, 2810 N. Meridian Rd., Tallahassee, at 11:00 AM on Monday, November 12th, with viewing preceding at 10:00 AM in the Sanctuary. The family will receive friends from 5:00 to 7:00 Sunday PM, the evening prior to the service, at Jim and Enid’s home. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Goodwood Museum and Gardens (for the rose gardens), Big Bend Hospice, or the Florida Native Plant Society.

James Christopher Myers (Jim) was born in Fairmont, W.Va. and raised in Morgantown, W.Va. He developed an early interest in identifying wild plants and took a B.S. and M.S. in Botany from West Virginia University. He worked in the University Arboretum and enjoyed summer field work at the Univ. of Michigan Biological Station at Puttin Bay, and at W.V.U. biological stations. During his field work he identified and classified a rare and local variety of polyganum.

In 1942, while pursuing a Ph.D. at the Univ. of Illinois, Jim was drafted into the U.S. Army Medical Corps. With the 56th Medical Battalion he took part in campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, France and the invasion of Italy at Anzio Beach. Off duty he followed his interests in music, botany, and literature, writing papers on the flora of Morocco and hitch-hiking to hear opera and visit the graves of authors he loved. In 1945, while in the Vosges Mountains in northeastern France, Jim contracted tuberculosis and was evacuated to the U.S. He spent the next five years in TB sanitoriums, starting with Hopemont in the mountains of W.Va. The cure of the time was bed rest and fresh cold air. While at Hopemont, he met Enid Haller, a fellow patient from Morgantown. Because residents of men’s floors and women’s floors were not permitted to visit one another, Jim and Enid began corresponding by letter, beginning a courtship that led to their marriage on Dec. 26th, 1950.

Jim returned to the University of Illinois, earning an M.S. in Library Science while Enid taught school in a rural one-room school house near Urbana where she drove students to school and started the wood-stove in the morning herself.

The couple moved to Athens, GA for Jim’s first job at the Univ. of Georgia. Their children Jennie, Leanna and Eric were all born in Georgia. In 1959, Jim was hired as head of the Science-Technology Division at Florida State University’s Strozier Library. The couple became Tallahasseeans and have enjoyed life in the community and as dedicated travelers for the past 53 years.

In retirement they have remained avid travelers, participating over the years in 35 Elderhostels in the U.S. and throughout the world. They have also taken active part in two dance groups, their faculty bridge group, the Tallahassee Area Rose Society, and Goodwood Museum and Gardens, where Jim worked as a rose volunteer for 20 years, helping to propagate and tend the beautifully perfumed old roses that grace Goodwood’s grounds.

Survivors include Enid Myers of Tallahassee, Jennie Myers of Tallahassee, Leanna and Mark McEnearney of Arlington, VA, and Eric and Connie Myers of Miami, FL.