Evelyn Lehman Culp

Evelyn Culp was the Library Director of the Nappanee Public Library (NPL) from 1957 to 1977 and after that, she served eleven years as a Board Trustee. When she took the job as the Director at NPL, she decided that she would “wake up that sleepy library and put some life in it”. She did just that. Evelyn was the catalyst in creating the Library’s Heritage Collection and contributed time and effort to make the Heritage Collection renown. In the 1980s, the Collection and the rooms that it made up in the Library were recognized as being “unique to any Library in the state.” Today the Heritage Collection has outgrown the space at the Library and has been housed at the Nappanee Center since March 2007.

Evelyn gave over 2500 programs as a storyteller. She gave many of them as President’s First Wives mainly Mary Todd Lincoln and Dolly Madison. Her black velvet dress was used for many of those programs was designed for Betsy Stockbridge (a Michigan Senator’s wife) when she was presented to Queen Victoria. Evelyn was a member of the Nappanee Historic Preservation Commission and Thursday Club.

Evelyn’s legacy lives on with the Heritage Collection and in 1988 the Heritage Collection was renamed the Evelyn Lehman Culp Heritage Collection. She passed away in 2002.