Friends of Maine Libraries

Friends of Maine Libraries was an organization Johanna Noonan served before resigning in 1993. After her death, its name on her calendars became part of Michael Noonan’s effort to understand the gap between the public schedule she recorded and the time she was secretly spending in the TR.

Johanna’s Service

Johanna’s calendars showed a busy pattern of civic work: she attended meetings of several organizations, including Friends of Maine Libraries. Her commitments could amount to two or three meetings a month, and at some points two or three a week. Michael later recognized that he had barely noticed how much she was doing, absorbed as he was in his own writing.

The calendars also connected Friends of Maine Libraries with Johanna’s wider public life. She served on its board alongside her work with Soup Kitchens of Maine and other organizations. The records first suggested a straightforward explanation for her movements: a date marked for a board meeting could account for a trip away from home.

Resignation and the Calendar Discrepancy

When Michael asked Bonnie Amudson about Johanna’s commitments, Bonnie clarified that Johanna had not remained on the Friends of Maine Libraries board. She had resigned from it in October or November 1993, along with Soup Kitchens of Maine; her terms with Woman Shelters and Teen Shelters had ended earlier, at the end of that year.

That information changed how Michael read the calendars. Sheets from both 1993 and 1994 still listed dozens of meetings for boards Johanna no longer belonged to. On those purported meeting days, Michael was certain she had been in the TR. The discrepancy did not disclose exactly what she was doing there, but it undermined the calendar’s appearance as a reliable account of her engagements and made the records evidence of concealed activity.

Role in the Investigation

The organization’s name appears in a trail of details Michael assembles after Johanna’s death. Ward Hankins finds a November 1993 calendar entry referring to a Friends of Maine Libraries meeting in Freeport. The entry helps Michael identify the date and a plausible public commitment, but the later account of Johanna’s resignation makes such entries troubling rather than conclusive.

Friends of Maine Libraries is therefore significant less for any described internal activity than for its place in the contrast between Johanna’s visible civic commitments and her unacknowledged trips to the TR. Its calendar entries offer Michael a starting point, while the resignation date exposes the limits of what those entries can explain.