If you’ve been to the Monroeville branch of the Allen County Public Library on a Tuesday evening, you may have caught glimpse of an unlikely friendship that’s formed there over the past several years.
Mary Hanley and Hazel Minerd often sit at a small table near the newly installed storyscape inside the Monroeville library. Here, they play games, read and spend time.
On this particular evening, they’re playing UNO.
Mary is 95-years-old and Hazel is seven. From the outside, it’d be easy to mistake them for being related, and this a normal family trip to the library. But Hazel and Mary aren’t related by blood; they’re just best friends.
“I think it was just that spark of friendship,” Hazel said.
“There was just something sparked,” Mary added.
“Just the magic, I don’t know what," Hazel said. “As long as it’s a Tuesday we come and we do it.”
Mary was in a study group at the library with Hazel’s grandmother, which is how she first met Hazel, who was several years younger at the time.
“Grandma wanted to see me and found out I was here, so they came in. And then next thing I knew she and I were friends,” Mary said.
“And that’s when I was like two or three,” Hazel said.
“No, you were four," Mary corrected.
Not long after, Hazel started asking after Mary when she would come into the library.
“The girls here would tell me that my friend Hazel was looking for me," Mary said. "And, I was like ‘Hazel?’ I couldn’t think who Hazel was, you know, I was thinking more of somebody my age. And then finally when they explained to me I was like oh, yeah! And so she would look for me.”
Hazel’s mom usually joins the pair when they play games at the library and she said there was just something about Mary that sparked Hazel’s interest.
“It was right after the COVID world and it was really, connection-wise, it was the first connection where she was like I wonder what my friend’s doing, we have plans, I wanna go check in with Mary, and it was very sweet," she said.
But neither Hazel nor Mary know exactly what led to the connection.
“We have no idea,” Mary said.
“No!” Hazel agreed.
“Nobody has any idea what it was, but there was just something that clicked," Mary said.
Mary and Hazel were already both often at the library, independently, and it occurred to Mary it would be easier to simply know when Hazel would be visiting.
“If I know she’s going to be there, I can be there," she said. "I live by myself I can come and go as I please.”
So, now, they meet there once a week. If someone is sick, they communicate in letters. When Mary was sick recently and couldn’t make their playdates, Hazel visited her at her home to cheer her up.
"They are very much actual friends, like they have a close enough connection that they will be witty and sarcastic and loving and all the things that come with it," Hazel's mom said. "And it is very... I don’t know. I like it a lot.”
Even as they play UNO, Hazel and Mary joke and snipe at each other like old friends.
In the newly renovated storyscape, Hazel goes out of her way to tease Mary, who takes it all in good fun.
“Mary doesn’t like fish but somehow always ends up with fish on her (plate)," Hazel's mom said.
“She always makes me buy fish or eat the fish,” Mary said.
“I always put fish on her pizza!” Hazel laughed.
The Monroeville library used to be across the block, in a much smaller space. In the new space, there’s room for library programming and activities. Mary said being able to have these meetings with Hazel is only possible in the newer space.
“We couldn’t do this, I mean there just wouldn’t be room for it," she said. "And so, that was a wonderful thing when they made all those improvements everywhere.”
And if the library hadn’t been here at all? There’s no way the two would have crossed paths.
"Well, in the first place I wouldn’t have known her grandma, because we wouldn’t have been in that study group together," Mary said. "So, I wouldn’t have known her. And, no, we probably never would.”
But now, when library programming falls on a Tuesday, Mary and Hazel get to do it together. They’ve made hot cocoa bombs, bracelets, watched trains. They even dropped Mentos into soda bottles.
“So, like, they both had science goggles on and we were outside watching soda pop go wild," Hazel's mom said.
“So, it’s been a kind of a fun thing we can-” Mary said, before Hazel chimed in, “See each other every week.”
“And I love finding things that can keep me active and doing," Mary said.
Mary said all of her children and grandchildren live away from home, in places like Texas and Yellowstone, so having the set plans with Hazel keeps her active.
“And at my age, there’s not a lot I do anymore, not like I used to," she said. "And so, I have something to look forward to. I still have a little friend.”
Mary got Hazel into playing piano, which she now takes lessons for and practices every night, and Hazel taught Mary how to finger knit, though she said Hazel would have to show her again to get it right.
And every year, on Hazel’s birthday, they go to a local ice cream shop together.
“There are fun things to do in this town," Mary said.
“Like see your best friend,” Hazel said.
“What did you say?” Hazel's mom clarified.
“Like see your best friend at the library," Hazel repeated.
