A little over 4 years ago I retired from the federal government. I left a job with the coolest job title I could have imagined - Command Librarian.
I was making plans for something to do in retirement to keep me busy and get me out of the house on occasion and give my husband some space. I was looking into a retiree position with FEMA. Before that came to pass, another job presented itself.
For the past 4 years I've been part of the FOIA Search team at the U.S. Department of State. The job seemed interesting and paid well. 40 days into the job the world shutdown because of Covid. I was able to work from home and I was really happy under the circumstances.
Time has passed and the job lived up to my expectations and has been really interesting. I have been blessed to work with some really great people. We all learned a lot and we have been able to contribute by improving processes and, more important, we helped complete a large number of FOIA requests.
The search team will continue, but in the past month I decided it was time for me to move on - again.
Again I am making plans for what my next chapter will be.
There are many projects at home that haven't gone away. I'll make a plan for tackling those. In addition I'll get back to work on researching family history.
One of my uncles, L. Kent McBee, has already pulled together a lot of the family history for that side of the family. I entered that and everything I have for my maternal line into Ancestry.com.
Next up I'll go to Library of Congress and see if I can tap into any of the existing family histories that they have in their collection. A colleague mentioned that the National Archives also has a lot of materials available to the public - census, immigration, and military records and more.
My career as a librarian has been a tremendous blessing. I still thank my late godmother, Mary B. Nichols, who steered me toward a career in federal service. It has provided me so much and I am grateful.
May everyone be so blessed.
