Mattie Rials, a beloved children’s librarian known to generations simply as “Miss Mattie” and regarded with sainthood in Southwest Mississippi for her gentle ways with children and ever-sunny demeanor, has died. She was 91.
Rials passed away Monday, Jan. 13, 2025, at Camellia Estates in McComb, where she had spent less than a week after being placed in hospice care.
Rials suffered a compression fracture, which occurred around New Year’s Day, her granddaughter Sarah Beth Mangrum said.
Mangrum said Rials was being a trooper, but her back gave out, and she went to the hospital for treatment. After that, doctors recommended hospice in an effort to manage her pain.
Mangrum said the turn of events has been significant for Rials.
“She was driving two weeks ago. She didn’t have to make a decision to move out of her house,” she said.
While Rials was a local celebrity of sorts, there will be no big funeral service or visitation, Mangrum said, and a graveside service will be limited to family, although a public memorial will be held at a later date.
“I’ll be putting together some sort of memorial,” Mangrum said.
She said she plans to meet with the library board later this month about the possibility of renaming the library’s main branch in McComb after Rials.
“We will do a public memorial and unveiling of that,” Mangrum said, adding that she wants to curate an exhibit of photos of Rials in the library’s art gallery, which Rials managed.
“I think that would be a fitting way for everybody to pay respects to her,” Mangrum said.
She was born May 28, 1933, in McComb to James E. Gardner and Gladys McElveen Gardner.
She was a member of First Baptist Church of McComb.
She worked for the library for 45 years and continued to volunteer there until her death.
Rials’ work with children started with a Bible school class when she was 15.
"That was the first time I worked with a group of children and I still remember it. I can tell you funny stories about the things they did," Miss Mattie said in a 1988 interview. "But even before that, I loved to work with the children in my neighborhood. I loved to take them for walks and talk to them.”
She opened her own kindergarten in the garage of her and her husband Roger’s house on Sixth Street in McComb in 1965. She charged $20 per month per child — $18.50 to attend school in the morning and $1.50 to cover the cost of taking kids to and from kindergarten in her Volkswagen bus.
The late Sybil Hayman, who adopted the alter ego of country bumpkin Punie Mae, taught at the kindergarten with Rials.
After closing the kindergarten in 1974, Rials went to work for the library. Jane Bryan was her first boss at the library.
“She said to me, ‘If you ever close the kindergarten, come to work for the library,’ ” Rials recalled in an interview.
It was at the old library on the corner of Front and State streets in McComb where Rials quickly became known as a teacher and entertainer of children as adept and revered as Captain Kangaroo or Mister Rogers.
Rials had her own alter ego as well, a never-seen rodent named Scooter Mouse who lived in the walls of the library and — according to legend fabricated by Rials — came from a farm in Amite County and escaped the clutches of a cat by seeking refuge in the library, where he rode a motorcycle through endless rows of bookshelves after hours.
In recent years, Alice Rhae Mitchell of Magnolia penned a series of children’s books based on the life and times of Scooter Mouse, with Sheryl K. Perry providing the illustrations.
Rials was a prolific letter writer who sent cards of congratulations to local residents when they had “done good,” with each signed by Scooter Mouse, the signature bearing a trademark backwards E.
She provided a quote on Scooter’s behalf when she was named the Enterprise-Journal’s 1988 Citizen of the Year.
"I don't know about that alter ego stuff," Scooter said. "I'm pretty much my own mouse. I am awfully fond of Miss Mattie, though, and I'm so proud she won this award. She deserves it. I see her down here in the basement at all hours, making favors for the children who come to Storyhour or packaging up ‘happies’ to send to folks. Miss Mattie's nicer than free cheese.”
Rials’ took her story hour to all of the library branches in Pike, Amite and Walthall counties up until a few years ago.
She’d sing songs about imaginary bus and train rides and anything that was fit for the occasion, strumming her Suzuki Omnichord — a cross between a synthesizer and autoharp — as she sang.
Rials would go to the low-water bridge in Franklin County to collect rocks, which she painted to make pet rocks as part of her storyhour crafts project.
She also had a close connection with children and adults with special needs. She attended the McComb Junior Auxiliary’s annual Camp Sunshine to lead a sing-along and morning worship each July.
She also established Wednesday Friends, a weekly gathering for arts and crafts, with some of its regulars meeting with Rials once a week over the course of decades. Rials said she thought of the Wednesday Friends “like my family.”
A few years ago professors Leah Plocharczyk from Florida Atlantic University and Matthew Conner from the University of California-Davis did the research and determined that the Wednesday Friends was the oldest running intellectually disabled adult programming in the nation.
In 2013, Mangrum and others formed the Miss Mattie Foundation, which awarded scholarships to area students, with the awards named in honor of Rials, Hayman, Scooter Mouse and Punie Mae.
In 2022, Mississippi Magazine named Rials one of its Golden Magnolias, which the magazine described as a Mississippi woman who “is solid in her beliefs, yet has a soft heart. She may be delicate, but she’s hardy with a heart of gold. And her perseverance helps her bloom where she is planted.”
Rials was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Roger B. Rials; an infant child;, two sisters, Wilma Lawrence and Norma “Lucy” Simmons; a brother, William “Jack” Gardner; two brothers-in-law, George “Skeeter” Simmons and Bill Lawrence; and a sister-in-law, Claire Gardner.
Survivors include her two sons and their spouses, Steve and Rebecca Rials of Mccomb and Tim and Becky Rials of Maryville, Tenn., three grandchildren, Sarah (James) Mangrum of Hattiesburg, Leah Rials of Hattiesburg and Hannah (Sebastian) Jensen of Chippenham, England; a great-grandchild, Sybil Frances Mangrum; a a special niece, Karen (Robbie) Robertson of Centreville; and numerous nieces and nephews.
This wasn’t the first time Rials had suffered a debilitating fall. On April 25, 2018, she lost her balance and fell at the library, breaking her hip. That led to an extended stay at McComb Nursing and Rehabilitation.
While in a nursing home for an extended stay to endure weeks of physical therapy, Rials took it in stride and with a smile. She remarked at the time that she already knew all of the staff and residents there because she was among the volunteers who led weekly Sunday school classes at the nursing home.
“What you’re doing is refreshing other people’s lives,” she said. “The Bible says when you refresh other peoples lives, you refresh your own also, and If you’ve done that you can live a happy life.”
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to First Christian Church, the Miss Mattie Foundation or a charity of your choice.
