My mother's bookstore closed last month.
My mother, Lucille Canterbury, was a voracious reader. Around 1980, my mother and her best friend, Marie Spencer, took all their books and started having garage sales. Between the two of them, they had around 10,000 books just sitting around gathering dust. They had several people who would come to their garage sales, looking for books, but also looking to get rid of their own book collections.
After a summer of selling, buying and trading books out of their garage, they had enough money to pay rent and utilities on a small storefront in Ravenna, rented to them by Friend Construction. They had a more books to stock the store than they started out with at the beginning of summer. My father and Marie's husband built the shelves. They called it "The Book Corner". They soon outgrew the small rented space and after several moves, settled into their final location on Main Street.
Lucille and Marie made a modest income. They would never be rich but it was enough to make a yearly trip to a Romance Book convention in New York City where they met many of their favorite authors, including Janet Dailey and Barbara Cartland.
By 1995, my mother had become quite ill and had to sell the bookstore. Ravenna resident Keith Williams made an offer and took the store over. My mother died in 1996 but for another 14 years the bookstore went on. Recently I stopped into the store only to find out that Keith had decided to close the store. I was sad that it was ending but I was greatful to Keith for keeping it going as long as he did.
When I told my father about the closing his only comment was, "Another piece of your mother gone." On February 27th, 2008, the Book Corner closed its doors for the last time, a victim of changing times in the age of Borders and Amazon.com.
He said he knew it was time to let it go the day a mother and her daughter walked by the store. The child wanted to go in, but the mother said, "You don't want to go in there, all that's in there are books."
I have one final memento of my mother's dream. The sign that hung in the window with the store name and logo. Its going to hang in my personal library/computer room. I would hope that everyone could have as full of a life as my mother did, for she truly did live her dreams.