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| Larry Dunphy | |
Larry Dunphy, owner of Books on First in Dixon, Ill., died November 28, Thanksgiving Day. He was 81. Noting that downtown Dixon had "lost a big chunk of its soul," SaukValley.com reported that "Dunphy never stopped working at the store he owned for 21 years, and in fact worked Wednesday, said Brenda Spratt, his employee for 19 years, who likened his sudden death to losing a father."
Spratt opened the bookstore and coffee shop on the Friday morning after Dunphy's death and said in a Facebook post: "Comfort... that's what each and every one of you brought to us today. The wonderful Facebook posts and memories, cards, visits to the bookstore, phone calls... there are no words to express our gratitude. There's a void downtown Dixon that will never be filled.... Again, thank you all. Your love is felt."
Books on First launched in 1998, and Dunphy had credited his wife Carolyn Chin with the original idea, "though it appealed to his sensibilities.... Over the years since, there's been a steady stream of customers into what Dunphy proudly noted was one of the few independent Illinois bookstores west of the Chicago suburbs," SaukValley.com wrote. "The locals say, 'I'll meet you at Larry's.' They come for a good read, they come for the coffee and the treats, they come for the live music, the chatter, the camaraderie. They kept coming, in large part, because of Larry."
"He really, really loved books," Chin said. "He loved a lot of things. He loved life. He loved music, and not within a year we started to have live music, once in a while, then once a month, and now it's almost every weekend. He's a very modest man. He didn't feel like he was much of anything, just a regular kind of guy."
"From the beginning, it was really kind of a gathering place, because there were no places like this downtown," said John Thompson, former president of the Dixon Area Chamber of Commerce. "He was a catalyst [in] the resurgence of the downtown. He led by example: he wanted other merchants to stay open, worked more days, more hours. Typically, at first, he would work 7 days a week, morning to night.... He was very much adamant about small business and the independent bookstore concept."
Books on First will continue to operate at its usual hours, because "that's what he would have wanted," Chin said. "He looked at this building and said that this was the perfect building. We bought the building because we wanted it to be exactly what we wanted. He asked me, 'Do you think this will be a place that people will want to go and be a destination?' I said, 'Absolutely. That's why we're here.' "
"People who talk about Larry Dunphy often use the word 'community," the Chicago Tribune wrote. "Though his store is a small place in a small town, his life shows the great, universal connective power of books, coffee, conversation and one dedicated person."