Who is Rita Cox

"Children ask me that all the time," Cox said with a laugh. "But, I have a large repertoire. There are so many stories that I love. There are stories that say something to me."

A master storyteller and integral part of Parkdale's recent history, Cox knows a thing or two about telling a story. Cox started her career as a children's librarian.

"Being a storyteller and being a children's librarian were synonymous," she said. "And I don't mean 'read' stories. I mean 'tell' them."

She has traveled all over the world to tell her stories and a number have been published, including her own children's book entitled How Trouble Made the Monkey Eat Pepper.

"You can only tell a story that belongs to you," she said. "Even if it comes from a different source you have to make a story your own in order to share it."

Born in Trinidad, Dr. Cox joined the Toronto Public Library as a children's librarian in 1960. In 1972, she became the head of the Parkdale Branch. Cox, who lives in Swansea, served at the Parkdale branch for 24 years.

"I have always wanted to be a librarian even from very young," said Cox, who studied the field in New York. "I grew up in an oral tradition; I grew up with books and libraries. It just seemed like a natural thing to happen."

As a child growing up in Trinidad, Cox said, telling stories was how they entertained themselves.

"In those days you didn't sit glued to a television," she said. "It was a natural part of our existence. Our parents told us cautionary tales instead of scolding and that kind of thing."

But Cox's legacy in Parkdale extends far beyond the stories she told and she credits that to the support of the community.

"This community kept me and this library kept me," she said. "This library system empowered me. The support that I got for all the initiatives that I made, I can never forget."

During her tenure, in 1973, Dr. Cox pioneered the library's Black Heritage and West Indian Resource Collection, which was later named the Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection in her honour. She founded the Parkdale Community Information Centre in 1976, which continues to operate in the Parkdale branch. She said it was formed because of the wealth of newcomers she saw coming to the library.

"This is a receiving area, and it always has been," she said, looking out into a packed library. "You can always tell who are the new immigrants, you can see the changes in the populations in Canada and in Parkdale."

She also established Project Read in 1977 in Parkdale, a community adult literacy program that grew and continues to run in South Parkdale.

She initiated Reading Together, a predecessor of Toronto Public Library's current Leading to Reading program for children and sat on the steering committee for both the Parkdale Activity-Recreation Centre (PARC) and the Parkdale Health Centre.

Cox continues to work in the Caribbean community. She is a board member of the Ontario Arts Council and still tells stories.

"Parkdale helped me to realize potential that I didn't even know I had," she said. "And they gave me the opportunity to expand and really serve the people."

Cox is a recipient of the Canadian Library Association Public Service Award and the Black Achievement Award. She holds honorary doctorates from Wilfrid Laurier University and York University. In 1997, Cox was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada for her outstanding work in storytelling and literacy.