In the heart of a small Tennessee town named Orlinda, where the sun casts long, warm shadows over rolling fields, there lives a woman whose presence is as steadfast as the land itself. At 82, Annelia English Knight moves through her days with a grace and energy that belies her years. There's a certain elegance to her—an unspoken nobility hinted at by her very name, a reflection perhaps of her background in make-up and fashion design.
The town’s humble public library stands at the heart of Orlinda, a modest building with a history etched into its walls. Once the Bank of Orlinda, built back in 1903, it now serves as a repository of stories both old and new. It was here that Annelia found another chapter of her own story unfolding. When the previous librarian fell ill, the library doors were shuttered, its future uncertain. But for Annelia, a closed door was simply an opportunity waiting to be grasped.
"It needs to be open," she said when she heard of its closure. "People are going to want to stop in the library... just coming through town and asking questions." And so she volunteered, at first just to "keep the doors open until y'all decide what you're going to do." After four months, the city manager approached her. "Do you want this job?" he asked.
As she has with most challenges in her life, she said "yes,” although readily admitting, "I've never been a librarian.”
And the library needed her, and perhaps, in some quiet way, she needed it too. The place was in disaster area—a testament to benign neglect. "It was nasty," she says. "There was a big desk... you couldn't sit up under... it was full of trash from the floor up to here... trash." Undeterred, she rolled up her sleeves. "The first thing I did was I just had to clean up." Top to bottom, side to side, she cleaned it all, by herself. The blinds, she says, took four attempts each to clean. “The dust was so thick it looked black,” she said.
She speaks of the children's section with particular fondness. "I went through every book one by one," she said, eyes gleaming with the memory of her meticulous labor. Sorting, categorizing, making sense of the chaos—she brought order where there was none, turning the old bank vault into a haven for young readers.
Her inclination to serve is woven deep into the fabric of her being. When asked what drives her to volunteer, she paused thoughtfully before replying, "Well, I just enjoy helping people. And I don't want to be in the limelight. Like you said, that's not important to me. I've been there and done all that in my early years."
Indeed, her early years were filled with endeavors that broke the mold. In a time when the glass ceiling for women was as thick as arctic ice, she attended business school and forged a path in the corporate world. "I worked for B.F. Goodrich, for the plant manager in Calvert City, Kentucky," she said. Later, she owned and operated her own retail clothing store, a venture that became her mainstay. "I was a single mother of three children and no child support," she said, her voice steady but tinged with the echoes of past struggles. "There was a time when I had worked three jobs, you know. But my main income was my retail business."
Her parents, she believes, instilled in her the values she carries to this day. "I think I learned that from my mother," she said. "My dad had an insurance business and he was quite a community supporter, quite a talker, and community-minded man."
Annelia’s life is a complex palette of service, painted in various harmonizing hues of strength and compassion. At the senior center in town–which is a vibrant hub of activity involving everything from special themed dinner nights to Tai Chi classes–she is a familiar face, participating in yoga, playing dominoes, or stepping into the kitchen to help when needed. During a recent spaghetti supper, a fundraiser that drew more people than expected, she found herself in the thick of it. "I was slinging spaghetti like crazy," she laughed. "We made over $1,500 that night."
When the event ran longer than anticipated, and the dishes piled high, it was Annelia who stayed behind. "My hands were shriveled because I did them all, I washed all the dishes. Every last one of them and I did it by hand." There was no complaint in her tone, only the satisfaction of a job well done. Sheri Link, the Byrum Porter Center’s executive director, told me Annelia is always the first to volunteer. “I can always count on her to be there when the call goes out,” she said. Indeed, among her other duties, Annelia serves as vice chair of the center.
Her enthusiasm is infectious, spilling over when she talks about the activities at the senior center or the history of Orlinda. "I get excited when I'm talking about it," she admitted with a grin. She treasures the stories of the town—the old grain mill that shipped flour all the way to California, the time when Orlinda was a bustling hub of commerce or the day Hollywood discovered the town as the backdrop for a movie about Frank and Jesse James. She collects these tales, sharing them with anyone who shows an interest, ensuring that the legacy of this small town is not forgotten.
In the library, among the shelves she meticulously organized, she points out a curious addition: fishing poles. "You can just check them out like a book if you want to take your family fishing," she explained. It's another example of how she bridges the past with the present, offering small joys to those who seek them.
Despite all she's accomplished, recognition is not something she seeks. "I've been there and done all that," she said. Her fulfillment comes from the simple act of giving, of being a part of something larger than herself. "I just enjoyed being a help to people," she said. "Because of what I could offer."
As the day wanes and the golden light bathes the town in a warm glow, one can see in her the embodiment of a life well-lived—not in grand accolades, but in the quiet impact of her deeds. She moves with purpose, yet there's an ease about her, a contentment rooted in knowing that she has, in her own way, made the world around her a bit brighter.
In a world that often rushes past the subtle and the gentle, people like Annelia stand as reminders of the profound difference one person can make. Her story is not just her own but a reflection of the enduring spirit of community and the timeless value of generosity. And as long as she walks the streets of Orlinda, with that spark in her eye and a readiness to lend a hand, the town's heartbeat will continue to echo with hope and quiet joy.