Tuesday, September 29, 2015
I am heartbroken to hear of the passing of Michael. He was a worker whom I supervised at the Cecil B. Moore Branch Library when he was a teenager. He was an intelligent, warm, motivated individual. He was kind and instructive with the younger children. He was a wonderful mentor to them and especially to his siblings. He grew to be a fine young man.
His image is the Astronaut on the 15 foot high 40 foot long mural that is there in the children's room of the Cecil B. Moore Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Astronaut is the way that he asked to be captured there on the mural. He is the symbol of high ambition for all the children in that neighborhood to see. He did not want just a portrait of himself as we have with the other children. In his modesty, he wanted to be featured on the mural as a helmeted Astronaut.
He is memorialized in image, in name & in living color on the mural there at the location. He will not be forgotten by all of us who knew, appreciated and loved him.
I will never forget Michael T. Gilliland. I will miss him always.
Audrey M. Roll, Supervisor for the Free Library of Philadelphia
