If you are looking for Anna Nichols, there is a good chance you will find her among a stack of books in the Charles H. Stone Memorial Library.

Since her mother taught her at age 3, Nichols has experienced a passion for reading. “I’ve had my nose in a book ever since in one way or another,” she said.

The branch librarian at the Pilot Mountain library said she has “always had a passion for the arts and literature.”

And in nearly all aspects of her life, those passions are evident.

While Nichols’ parents were Pilot Mountain residents and she claims Pilot Mountain as the place she grew up, Nichols spent much of her childhood traveling between the small town and places like Jamaica, the Caribbean and the West Indies.

“My mom and dad were missionaries, so I spent some of my youth tramping around the Caribbean and other places,” she said. “They built churches and schools.

“I developed a lot of that attitude and sense of calm in the West Indies. I was always that kid coming back and forth from the islands with an accent. We would be here for a while and then gone for two years.”

While out of the states, Nichols, who was Anna Long at that time, would be in schools with a European format or year-round schools. Each time she would come back to Pilot Mountain, she would have to be tested to make sure she was placed in the right grade.

“I was in high school before I ever had an American history course. I had a lot of British and European history,” she recalled.

Upon her parents’ retirement from mission work, the family settled in Pilot Mountain and Nichols attended and graduated from East Surry High School in the late ’70s, then went to Brevard Junior College, now Brevard College.

After receiving her Associate in Fine Arts in voice and piano from Brevard, she continued her studies in music at Salem College. She minored in religion.

“I had a love for music and great literature,” she said of her childhood. “I remember laying in the floor and listening to albums of Tchaikovsky and feeling the movement around me. I would be crying and my mom would walk in and ask me what was wrong, but it was just so moving to me, nothing was wrong.

“So music and literature have always been those things that moved me through life.”

She credited June Snow, a long-time Surry County teacher, for helping foster her love for the arts and literature. “She was a great influence in my life. I’m grateful to her today, because she fostered that love and brought that to me,” she said, noting that Snow would bring her music to listen to and suggestions.

Growing up, she befriended Marty Nichols, whose parents were good friends with her parents and whom she kept in touch with during her moves. He also spent time in school at Brevard, but then he moved to Charlotte and upon graduating, she went to teach in a small private school near Stuart, Va.

“He called me up out of the blue and said, ‘I think I’m going to have to marry you.’ It took us being 200 miles away from each other to know that,” she said laughing.

So she left her teaching job and married Marty, who she calls “a local boy,” in on New Year’s Eve on 1983 and they moved to Winston-Salem. “I joked with him that he just wanted me for a tax write-off,” she said smiling.

Twenty-six years later, the two are still happily married and living in Pilot Mountain.

“We moved to Winston-Salem into the Copley home that was the ministers home for Green Street Methodist Church and renovated it,” Nichols explained, adding that she has always lived in old homes.

For 15 years, the couple lived in Winston-Salem, during which time he served as music minister at a large church and she held a couple of different positions in business.

“I worked in administrative work, then in public relations at RJR Nabisco/Planters Lifesavers, and I sold candy and cookies and peanuts,” Nichols said. “The worst thing I ever did was fill in for an associate who broke her leg, and I was the only one small enough to squeeze into the cherry Lifesaver costume. I went to the Paul Newman Hole in the Wall camp for children with disabilities.

“It was enormous fun, but I never wanted to be a character again. I was a little chlosterphobic in that costume.”

After working in public relations, Nichols moved into the financial world for a while.

“I studied the arts, moved into teaching and my administrative skills were high through summer positions that helped hone those abilities,” she explained. “There were no teaching positions available when we moved to Winston-Salem, so I looked for something to help pay the bills. I always learned something in my job that helped me in the next job.”

But now Nichols has come full circle in her life. “My very fist public job in high school was being a page here at the Charles H. Stone Memorial Library after school and on weekends shelving books and doing story time. I find it rather ironic I’ve come full circle.

“Working as a page was great because it was one of the things that would foster my love for books. I would shelve books and come out with as many books to take home and read as I would go in with,” Nichols said.

“I can never own all the books I would love to get my hands on, but it is nice to have access here.”

In the mid-’90s, the Nicholses decided to move to Pilot Mountain to be closer to their parents, who were struggling with health issues.

“I took a year sobatical to decide how I wanted to spend the next chunk of my life. I came into the library and asked if there were any positions open, and there was a vacancy at assistant librarian. I was hired under Melinda Stamper in 1996, so I literally came full circle.”

Stamper left, then Heather Elliott served as branch librarian until 2005, when Nichols was named to that position.

While many librarians are required to get their Master of Library Science, Nichols said that is something she doesn’t have.

“I absolutely applaud those who have their MLS, but my experience in the business world really prepared me for working in the library, my work in communities, fundraising organizations and those skills translated into working in nonprofit and public work, and that passion for books, too,” she said.

Nichols and her husband don’t have any children of their own, but she has 14 godchildren in two families — the Broyles, who are missionaries on the Ivory coast of West Africa, have four children, and the Mach family, who serve has missionaries in San Paulo, Brazil, have 10 children.

“They have my number memorized and know they can call me anytime 24/7 and I’ll come to them if they need me,” Nichols said, adding that she met both families while living in Winston-Salem.

“I tell everybody, too, all these children who come through (the library) every day, I see so many who need a little extra love. We have so many great youngsters in this area, who are eager and curious. I love everybody else’s (children).”

Her love for children and youth has turned into a push for strong programming at the library for young people. After already having a strong focus on the very young kids to the middle school aged kids, she started programs a few years ago with a highlight on tweens and teens. “I think they are too cool to leave along. They have great insight into the world, because they are not so cluttered as adults.”

From the first day she started the teen programming, Nichols said she has a motto she lives by, “’You have lots of rules at school, lots of rules in the community and lots of rules at home. There only rule here is everybody gets respect,’ and it works. Lots of great friendships have been forged in those groups, and it has been interesting watching them grow and come back and bring friends and say, ‘Those are the cool librarians.’”

She and Marty also have owned a Pekingese 25 years of their marriage. Sigmond, their last dog, died last year at age 16. The couple went no where without Sigmond. She said, “If he couldn’t go, we didn’t go.”

Nichols’ brother, Jason Long, who is 18 years her junior, lives on a farm in Stokes County owned by their father. Her brother, Andrew Long, who was 14 years her junior, died in 1995.

Marty and Anna moved into his grandfather’s house on Main Street in Pilot Mountain when they came back to Pilot Mountain in the ’90s and began renovating the 1919 bungalow near the Presbyterian church.

“His mother became very ill and passed away, and we moved in with his father, but we still own the other home and are renovating it. It will be a nice place to call home some day down the road, but not anytime soon.”

Nichols said she enjoys being a part of Pilot Mountain again. “There are so many good things happening here now, and people who care about the growth and longevity of the town. It does have a way of drawing you full circle.”

Contact Wendy Byerly Wood at wbyerly-wood@mtairynews.com or 719-1923.