Obituary Note: Harris Smithson

Harris Smithson, "one of San Antonio's most prolific bookstore owners, a legacy that started in 1972 with the first L&M textbook store behind San Antonio College and that continues today with the Twig Book Shop at the Pearl," died May 15, the Express-News reported. He was 76. His daughter Shannon Oelrich and son Blake Smithson "recalled growing up surrounded and inspired by their dad's passion for books, from crawling into the L&M shelves as preschoolers to take a nap to running the registers as teenagers to lend a hand. Later, Blake delivered books while Oelrich managed one of her dad's stores."

"I think he felt like he was just keeping the torch burning that places like Rosengren's had started," Oelrich said, referring to one of San Antonio's first independent bookstores, which opened in the 1930s. "I think he wanted to keep that fire burning (also with) community events. He wanted it to be a place for people to gather. Because he loved to gather with people."

Blake Smithson added: "I feel like one the gifts we got from him was just getting to grow up around books all the time. That's what I loved about it, the access to information before the Internet."

Smithson initially pursued a medical degree at the University of Alabama, but a stint working part-time in the university bookstore inspired him to turn in another direction, earning a business degree at West Kentucky University, where Smithson's two half-brothers opened an off-campus textbook store. When they expanded to San Antonio in the early 1970s, Smithson moved to manage the fledgling store and purchased it in 1972.

He soon opened the first Twig store, which grew to three locations in the 1980s. In addition to L&M and the Twig, Smithson also opened the former Red Balloon children's bookstore in the Colonnade and Booksmith's on Alamo Plaza. In 1999, Smithson sold the Twig to businessman John Douglas, who moved the store to the Pearl in 2009. Douglas died in 2014, leaving the Twig to his wife, Frannie.

"You were able to observe his philosophy daily," said Stephanie Richardson, who worked at several of Smithson's bookstores during the 1980s. "And if you were smart, you gleaned from that the cohesiveness, the longevity, the family atmosphere. Those things don't just happen. It takes a special person to consistently create that environment. Not only over and over again, but across the decades."

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