Tom Schweyer

1937 - 2023

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Tom Schweyer, who oversaw libraries in the Lucas County jail and other correctional facilities during a nearly 30-year career with the Toledo Lucas County Public Library system, died July 5 at McLaren Bay Region Hospital in Bay City, Mich. He was 85.

He suffered cardiac arrest while en route from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Toledo, his daughter, Amy Stacy, said. After stopping at a gas station, he was transported to the hospital.

He and his late wife, Loretta, formerly of Waterville and Bowling Green, moved more than a decade ago to Onaway in northeast Lower Michigan, where he'd gone deer hunting in his youth. For years, the couple spent winters at Orange Harbor in Fort Myers, Fla.

Mr. Schweyer retired in August, 2001, from the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, which hired him as a librarian in August, 1972. After a brief stint at the Point Place branch, he became interim manager and then manager of the Lagrange-Central branch.

His appointment as corrections librarian in 1977 coincided with an order by U.S. District Court Judge Don J. Young that Lucas County commissioners provide library services to inmates. The library system also received a federal grant to offer services at the then-new Lucas County jail, the Toledo House of Corrections – known as the "workhouse" – in Whitehouse, and the Child Study Institute downtown, which held juvenile inmates.

"He always understood that people make mistakes," Mrs. Stacy said. "He wanted to make the best of their experience. He just believed in the good of people."

He tried to fulfill inmate requests, whether music or popular literature or law books. With art supplies he provided, one inmate painted a mural on the wall of a clipper ship, its sails unfurled.

The library outlet in the jail opened officially March 2, 1978, "with the same ceremony that surrounds the debut of branches for the general public," Blade staff writer Ann Weber wrote.

Mr. Schweyer said then: "I wouldn't say it was any different from any other library. They're a little deeper into self-help books, maybe."

He and Jim Marshall became good friends when they worked at separate branches on Central Avenue - Mr. Schewyer at Lagrange/Central and Mr. Marshall at the Kent branch.

"He was one of the easiest guys I've known to get along with," said Mr. Marshall, who retired in 2006 as manager of the local history and genealogy department at the main Toledo Lucas County Public Library.

"I think the prisoners appreciated Tom and thought he was interested in what the library could provide," Mr. Marshall said. "They had as much interest in the library and reading material as anyone else did."

He knew library materials, and inmates sought his advice, said David Harris, who retired as supervisor of the library's special services department.

"He was the type of person, he was your friend as soon as you met him. He had an even personality and was nice to everybody," Mr. Harris said.

When Mr. Schweyer retired, Mr. Harris recalled, "the inmates were not very happy. That was their guy."

He worked four days a week at the jail, his daughter said, and also had duties at the Maumee branch, aboard the bookmobile, and he delivered books to nursing homes.

Lowell Thomas Schweyer was born Aug. 15, 1937, in Detroit to Andrew and Marion Schweyer, named for a well-known broadcaster, adventurer, and newsreel narrator of the era. He was a graduate of St. Rita High School in Detroit and, after taking a year off to explore the Finger Lakes region of New York, joined the Navy. He served as a radio operator and was stationed in Hawaii and Japan.

Back home, he became a roofer with his brother Andrew and, encouraged by an uncle, continued his education. He received a bachelor's degree in English from Wayne State University. Graduate studies led to a master's degree in library science from Wayne State.

After a stint with the Detroit Public Library, he accepted the library job in Toledo.

He liked to read Western novels and the popular fiction of authors James Patterson and John Sandford. His interest in fishing led him to the Maumee River for the annual spring walleye run and to Alaska. He also enjoyed bear hunting in the Upper Peninsula.

He was a former Boy Scout leader in Waterville.

"He was very calm, pretty quiet, funny - like unexpectedly funny at times, because of his quietness," Mrs. Stacy said. "Every once in a while, he would say something silly."

He and Loretta "Lori" Belisle married June 27, 1964. She died April 17, 2022.

Surviving are his sons Mark Schweyer, Matt Schweyer, and Ed Schweyer; daughters Marcy Gifford and Amy Stacy; 13 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Services next month in Onaway will be private. Arrangements are by Chagnon Funeral Home, Onaway.

The family suggests tributes to Presque Isle District Library-Onaway Friends of the Library or The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.