Elizabeth P(arkinson) Hoffman (1921-2003) Biography

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for SATA sketch: Born March 23, 1921, in Pittsburgh, PA; died of a neurological disease July 16, 2003. Librarian, educator, and author. Hoffman was a librarian whose interest in ghosts led to her writing several books for children and young adults. Finishing her undergraduate degree at Dickinson College in 1942 and her library-science degree at Drexel University in 1961, Hoffman actually started out as an elementary-school teacher in Pennsylvania during the late 1950s and early 1960s. She was then hired as coordinator of the division of school libraries for the Pennsylvania Department of Education in 1966. In 1975 she joined the faculty at Villanova University as an associate professor of library science and chair of the department until 1978, and the next year she became director of the Havertown Township Free Library in Pennsylvania until her retirement in 1991. During the 1970s Hoffman began publishing books for young readers, several of which were inspired by the house she lived in, which was supposedly haunted. Her works include This House Is Haunted (1977), Here a Ghost, There a Ghost (1978), and In Search of Ghosts: Haunted Places in the Delaware Valley (1992), as well as the somewhat less spooky Palm Reading Made Easy (1971) and Palm Reading (1977).