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| Sue Lubeck | |
Sue Lubeck, founder of the Bookies Bookstore, Denver, Colo., died July 8. In a Facebook post, the bookshop said: "The depths of our despair at sharing this cannot be imagined. Last night, surrounded by her family, our founder Sue Lubeck reached the end of her long story. Sue was a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, friend and author of every good thing the Bookies ever was. She leaves behind a world that was richer for her having been in it. A world where countless children learned to love reading. A world filled with more laughter and joy than it will have without her in it. We will never stop missing her and will remember that the greatest joy she found was in all of our happiness. Goodbye Sue."
In 1971, "when the youngest of her three children, Rob, went to kindergarten, Sue set out to determine what she wanted to do next with her life," Westword reported. "Knowing the Denver area needed a children's bookshop, she decided to found that store in her basement. Soon her offerings began to take over the family's entire home."
"She was definitely a trendsetter and independent woman back in the early '70s," said Rob Lubeck. "For a woman to be an entrepreneur without a business background was pretty revolutionary."
Sue Lubeck ran the shop out of her home for years, but after zoning inspectors shut down the operation, she moved the Bookies to Sixth Avenue and Ogden Street. From there, she also launched a bookmobile, but within a few years the shop outgrew its space.
The Bookies eventually relocated to its current space at 4315 East Mississippi Avenue, "where it's been for decades, inspiring children with a vast selection of books, along with a wild array of educational gizmos, toys and board games," Westword wrote. "She would pair books and stuffed animals and find 'out-of-the-box' ways to market her store, recalls Rob. If a customer came in searching for a hard-to-find book, she would spend hours making calls around the world to find it."
"It was all about the employees and the customers, at equal levels," he added. "She put her heart and soul into the Bookies for 50 years, and created a unique shop experience.... Her philosophy was that you can do anything you put your mind to, and she taught that to myself and my two brothers as well. She was very caring and pushed us in the right ways and pushed the education and the drive, but not in a super hard way."
The loss comes as the store is preparing to mark its 50th anniversary August 15 with "a string of special events, including the sale of some of Sue's personal collection of antiquarian books," Westword noted, adding that the family will hold a public memorial service for Lubeck in September.