GROVES — Louella Doucet can factually say she has spent most of her life at Groves Public Library and now Keilah Baaheth is on the same journey.

Doucet — who was recently named the library director — began work at the library at the age of 17 when she was a student at Port Neches-Groves High School. Through the years she has worked with four “really amazing women” who helped shape and expand her career, each one contributing something different.

Baaheth is a college student but she and her siblings spent many hours at the small community library nestled next to Wesgroves Park, a senior citizens center and baseball park on 5600 W. Washington Blvd. She was recently hired to work circulation and technical services.

Baaheth was home schooled and she and her four siblings would spend countless hours at the library where they were the “best behaved children,” Doucet said. Baaheth had a speech impediment growing up, but her love of reading made a positive change, she said, and the impediment got better.

When she graduated high school she didn’t really know what she wanted to do. She liked drawing so she thought about architecture. Then she saw what was right in front of her — the library. She has earned an associate degree from Lamar State University Port Arthur, and in the fall will begin pursing her bachelor’s degree in library sciences. Once that is completed she wants to earn her master’s.

Doucet, a native of Port Barre, Louisiana, moved to the area in 1976 and graduated high school in 1982.

“I’ve lived here, worked here, raised my children here and my grandchildren are here,” Doucet said.

Along the way she worked with the circulation desk then in the back of the library for processing and ordering books, then children’s programming and now director.

Looking back she’s realized something about her and the library — both have touched the lives of so many guests.

And Baaheth is right beside her.