by Carrie Resch
Staff Writer
The library has become the book of love for many library employees who met their future spouses there, and especially for one happy couple who were just married.
Jenny and Jay Mooney both work at the Haydon Burns Library downtown and were married on February 19.
The couple met about two years ago on the library elevator. “I got on the elevator and saw him and thought he was cute and said, ‘You’re new, aren’t you?’” Jenny said.
Fate had them meet again a few months later when they both were throwing something away in the same trash can. They started talking and that same day, Jay sent her an Email with “Trash Talk” in the subject line. After that, they met by the trash can during their 15-minute breaks. Then, they started lunching together.
He quietly asked her to marry him in the patio area of the library, because that’s where they spent so much time together and started talking.
Jay is a library associate senior in the Florida Collection and Jenny is a supervisor in the adult literacy program. Jenny’s been with the library for six years and Jay for two.
The couple work right next to each other.
“If he coughs, I can hear him. If I giggle, he can hear me,” Jenny said.
Not for long. The new library opens later this year and the seating will change.
“When we move to the new library (on Hemming Plaza,) we couldn’t get further apart,” said Jay. “ She’s on the conference level (the basement) and I’m on the fourth floor.” But it may be a greater distance.
“I’m hoping I get to stay at the new library but I could be transferred,” Jay said.
The two like doing things downtown together.
Last weekend they did the Riverwalk and this weekend they are going to improvJacksonville. They hang out in Hemming Plaza, visiting the Farmer’s Market and the Landing. Once or twice a week they try to have lunch together and Jay usually stops by on his break to visit with her.
They also commute from their Arlington home together. “We just drive our little Toyota in,” Jenny said.
They were married at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Arlington Expressway and had the wedding reception at the Raddison. The two took their “Honey Mooney” (as Jay likes to call it) in New Orleans.
The couple said that they’re movie people, like to eat out, especially at sushi restaurants, and both “read like crazy.”
“I guess the library is a place for love,” Jenny said.
There are several other married couples who also met and work in the library and additional married couples work at library branches.
“I’m so delighted to have found this wonderful woman, and had it not been for the library, I wouldn’t have found her,” Jay said. “She’s the best.”
Their meeting place, the trash can, may keep a role in their lives: Jay says he wants to buy it and take it along to the new building.