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| Drusilla Park Jones | |
Drusilla Park Jones, who owned Drusilla's Books, a used and rare children's bookshop in downtown Baltimore, Md., that she called a "perpetual treasure hunt," died October 20, the Sun reported. She was 82.
"Drusilla's bookshop was unique in Baltimore. It filled a void. It catered to collectors, to those seeking a favorite long-gone childhood book and to people looking for a very special gift. I never regretted what I bought there--only what I did not buy," said Linda Lapides, a customer, collector and former Enoch Pratt Free Library librarian. "Drusilla always looked as charming as many of the books she sold. She had a pleasant demeanor and was generous about sharing information. She understood the mindset of her customers."
Jones earned a degree in German at Goucher College, where she met her husband, Earl Penuel "Pen" Jones Jr., on a double date. They married in 1962 and settled in Lutherville in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, she began working with Towson bookseller Shirley Balser, where she learned the bookselling trade.
Jones told the Sun in a 2000 interview that while buying books for her own three children, she began collecting for herself as well. This led eventually to selling hard-to-find titles to the public, starting in 1977. "I remember poring over my mother's childhood books before I could read, and nagging my mother to take me to the library," she said.
Jones also noted that the decision to go into business and remove many books from her home "saved her marriage," and gave her family extra room. In 1985, she opened Drusilla's Books along a section of Howard Street known as Antique Row. She began with three rented rooms and later expanded to her own shop, selling primarily out-of-print children's books and stocked series books.
"People walk in with that hopeless expression asking for something they used to have, and then they're so stunned I have it they buy it," Jones said. "Sometimes, they come back again and again.... It's a perpetual treasure hunt. That's the fun of it. You can't know everything that's out there.... This job is part treasure hunt, part detective work."