As a children's librarian in Atlanta for 30 years, Jane Saliers considered it her mission to get kids excited about reading.
As a late-blooming storyteller, she learned to put down her books and charm her audiences without the benefit of a script.
And as an accomplished pianist and choral singer, she encouraged her daughters in their own musical pursuits.
One of them, Emily Saliers, became half of the Grammy-winning Indigo Girls. Another, Elizabeth Saliers, is an opera and classical singer. Still another, Jennie Saliers, has sung for more than 20 years in the annual performances of "The Play of Herod," an Atlanta Christmas-season tradition. A fourth daughter, Carrie Saliers, was a choral singer until her death 12 years ago at age 29.
"Mom was always very supportive," said Emily Saliers of Decatur. "In the early days of our career, there might be just four people in our audience -- Amy Ray's parents and mine. Later on, when Amy and I would go on tour, Mom would give me a packet of letters she wrote for me to take along. I would look at them every few days on the road. They were short and funny and always buoyed my spirits."
Jane Firmin Saliers, 73, died March 5 at her Atlanta residence of complications from frontal lobe dementia. A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Emory University's Cannon Chapel. A.S. Turner & Son funeral home is in charge of arrangements. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Atlanta Public Library Foundation, c/o Sherry Siclair, 1 Margaret Mitchell Square, Atlanta, GA, 30303. Gifts should be designated "for summer reading program."
A native of Ohio with a master's in library science from Connecticut, Mrs. Saliers came to Atlanta in 1974 with her husband, Don Saliers, when he accepted a faculty position with Emory University's Candler School of Theology.
Mrs. Saliers served as children's librarian at several branches, including College Park, Inman Park and more recently, Ponce de Leon. Her specialty was story hour, which she conducted two to three times a week.
"Jane would read books, tell tales, recite rhymes and play word games," said Bill Monroe, the Ponce de Leon branch manager.
Jennie Saliers of Atlanta recalled her mother would spend hours cutting out characters to affix to a felt board to illustrate her stories. "Mom wanted her kids to be creative without having to use high-tech gadgets," she said.
During the early 1980s Mrs. Saliers stretched herself when she joined the Southern Order of Storytellers.
"Jane became a storyteller when she was persuaded to put the books down and tell a tale as best she remembered it," said Loralee Cooley of Cordell, Okla., a longtime friend and fellow member of the storytellers group.
Mrs. Cooley said telling a story from memory was a freeing experience for Mrs. Saliers. "It enabled Jane to watch her audience, and since she was very perceptive, she would play to the way they responded. By the late 1980s she had became a consummate teller of folk tales," she said.
Mrs. Saliers even dabbled in stand-up comedy. After taking a course at Jeff Justice's comedy school in Buckhead, she gave a one-time performance at the Punchline comedy club in Sandy Springs in the mid-1990s.
The Salierses were a musical family, even to the point of singing grace each evening at dinnertime -- in six-part harmony, no less. "Old Hundredth (Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow)" was a favorite. A longtime alto chorister, Mrs. Saliers was adept at part-singing, her husband said.
The Saliers girls also looked to their mother as the keeper of family memories. "We never tired of hearing Mom tell of our childhood experiences, and we asked her to repeat the stories again and again," said Elizabeth Saliers of Atlanta.
Survivors also include four grandchildren.
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