Susan Heller: A life with books

Susan Heller, retired rare book dealer, slipped away on October 8, leaving her shelves bare. She was 90. Born in 1933, Susan lived in Beachwood, Ohio and began life as a teacher but slowly succumbed to the magic of being a book dealer. The very idea of browsing garage sales, bidding at auction, going to book fairs, and dropping in to see what book shops were offering, these activities were never work for her, they were pure pleasure. The possibility to find unappreciated gems made life exciting. In 1982 she became a member of the ABAA.

Her husband, Haskell, a physician, early on joined her at weekend bookselling events and is remembered as a welcoming presence. In the late 1960’s Haskell fell ill and spent his subsequent career examining patients for the V.A., a career path that provided less stress but also less income. Susan, who graduated college in 1955, was first an elementary school teacher, later a substitute and in the 1960s a part-time writer for the Savannah Morning News. Toward the end of that decade she settled into a life with books.

In the beginning she advertised wants in Bookman's Weekly, locating material for acquirers. In time she became an opportunistic buyer focusing on good value and fine copies rather than any one category. This made it possible to frequently acquire material and in time her home became a cluster of chapels to the many categories of material she acquired over the years.

Haskell passed away in 2002 and Susan soon began to transition from being a general bookseller. Her primary focus had been on quality copies, but the Internet was weakening her primary advantage as a regional resource. Online, for the first time, buyers could find thousands of dealers’ stock with the same titles and editions. What once was a field based on exclusivity, the fine copies she specialized in, turned out to be somewhat common, highly competitive and subject to aggressive discounting.

Once she understood what was happening, she took steps to sell her books, while focusing on ephemera.

Initially she continued to sell via Abe and several of the other listing sites, but wasn’t comfortable to discount online. If she cuts a price or prices by 20%, haven’t I simply cut the price/value of my inventory by 20% permanently? That concern slowed her liquidation.

In 2007 her luck started to change. She met Gerry Farbman, a retired nuclear engineer. If the Internet was turning her business model upside down, it was also about to give her friendship, love and support. It happened on a dating site when she was 73. Her Gerry would become partner and companion. He liked to research old books and ephemera and Susan liked to sell ‘em.

In 2008 she resigned from the ABAA and focused on selling her stock. ABAA dealers ultimately bought her material, permitting her and Gerry to became ephemera-ologists, starting to send some things to auction and others to eBay. It would never to be a big enterprise but for soon-to-be-Octogenarians, it was quite a kick. When they were growing up they ran across a show in the early 1950’s that would tell their fortune: Life Begins at 80 and for them it really did.

With their books gone, they started to seriously approach their ephemera. If Susan encountered something mysterious she would call me. Her voice, would slip into her optimistic purr, and I knew she was pleased and happy.

She would never encounter a Gutenberg Bible in a garage sale. But she found pleasure in all things big and small.

She was easy to love. For those who knew her, we were blessed.