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Biographical Introduction.

Meredith A. Behm, née Weber, was born in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1957. Her father briefly worked as a Professor of Religious Studies at Lafayette College before his ordination as a minister at First Presbyterian Church of Springfield (NJ). Her mother took an active role in her church community by serving as a deacon. The second of three sisters, she grew up initially in Springfield, New Jersey, where she lived between the ages of 2 and 10. Springfield, originally her mother’s hometown, was segregated into distinctly white and Black neighborhoods, with a sizable Jewish population. Because there weren’t enough students available to keep school open on Jewish holidays, she often took the extra time to go roller-skating with her older sister. At the age of 10, she moved to Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, also known as the mushroom capital of the world, where more than half of all mushrooms produced in the United States are grown. Although schools were integrated by that time, Kennett Square’s neighborhoods remained segregated into predominantly white and Black communities, along with a recently-arrived Puerto Rican community consisting primarily of the families of laborers who picked mushrooms on local farms. She volunteered at her father’s church on Tuesday evenings, running the dishwasher while kids from all over town came to partake in food, games, and help with schoolwork. She graduated from Kennett High School in 1975. An avid reader and lover of quiet spaces, Meredith earned a BA in History at Gettysburg College, followed by a master’s degree in library and information science from Drexel University. Graduating from Drexel in 1980, she moved near Downingtown, Pennsylvania, where she gained employment as a librarian at Chester County Library. During this time, she met her husband, whom she would marry after two years of dating. She stepped back from work when her daughter was born in 1989, followed by a son in 1993, and spent ten years focused on raising her children. Against the objections of her husband’s parents, she returned to work in 1999 as an assistant librarian at Lionville Elementary School, where she remained until retiring in 2023. She and her husband have lived in the same house for more than forty years, and she enjoys taking frequent trips to the beach.