It was about two weeks ago when Melissa and I were walking home from school when, lugging bags over our shoulder up Forbes toward SqHill, she suggested that I turn my current utterance into my file project.

My utterance was something like, “I’ve been looking up the former owners of my used books, and they all seem to be dead.”

It was, at the time, disconcerting. (Despite that fact that all books will once have been owned by dead people, natch.) So I decided to start searching my books for more inscriptions and filing whatever–in most cases, little–info I could find on them.

https://plus.google.com/photos/108331725158756212470/albums/5992098046446251217

1. Helen M. O’Connor. As far as I can tell, she was Catholic. Despite the fact that the novel is uber-Catholic. It’s about a roaming priest. And Powers was a hardcore Catholic. I did buy this in Ft. Wayne when I lived there, and FW is a rather serious Catholic city. I found online that a Helen O’Connor leased some land back in the 60’s for a city park. Then I found an obituary of a Mark O’Connor in Munster, IN, which states that he was preceded in death by Helen O’Connor, who gave birth to Mark on the campus of, yes, University of Notre Dame. Hmm. O’Connor is Irish, and by definition, Catholic. But I like to think it’s all linked.
2. E. (Erma) Jean Price. Stamped. This was a recent purchase. Here’s what I found: “PRICE ERMA JEAN Age 71, of Shadyside, on Thurs., Nov. 28, 2013. Loving sister of Sally (Glenn) Reichard. No visitation or service. Memorial contributions may be made to the Carnegie Library of Lawrenceville, 279 Fisk St., Pgh., PA 15201. Arrangements entrusted to D’ALESSANDRO FUNERAL HOME & CREMATORY, LTD., Lawrenceville.” Loving sister of Sally, etc. seems like obituary-speak for “never married.” I mention this because I start creating stories in my head as soon as I read this stuff. Who was she? Why was she reading Todorov? Then I found a comment on the same website from a woman named Louise Brody in Paris: “Jean Price was an absolutely wonderful teacher, and an equally wonderful person. I am tremendously indebted to her – the love for the French language and culture that she communicated to me as a student inspired my move to Paris nearly 25 years ago. Thank you.”
3. Lebowitz. This is Naomi. I actually didn’t realize this was her book until I opened it up. Pleasant surprise. She was a friend of mine, an emeritus professor at Washington University in St. Louis. We met a number of times and talked about novels and writing, etc. A wonderful woman. She is still alive. (Admission: I stole this book from a basement room in Duncker Hall at WashU. Profs used to donate loads of books when cleaning offices, and for some reason the Eng. Dept. was hoarding them in this tiny room, where I was relegated for a summer as an office asst. They were, in my estimation, left to rot. I saved them!)
4. E.T. (Oliver?). I have no idea what the last name is. I’ve tried–desperately–to decipher it, with no luck.
5. Robert Capaldi. Stamped. It seems that this fellow is still alive and lives in Pittsburgh. Between 50-54 yrs. of age. Thanks WhitePages.com!
6. J. Reed Hunter. Okay. This is by far the saddest one. I buy at Caliban Books,  and they often get large sleeves of books just appearing on the ground. Day after day. How lucky I am as a PhD student that people are selling books, right? Wrong. Often, they are off-loaded by families of the deceased. Dr. Hunter had a lot of books. Here’s from the obituary on the funeral home’s site: “Dr. J. Reed Hunter, 52, of Pittsburgh, formerly of Saltsburg, passed away Thursday, January 16, 2014 at UPMC Montefiore in Pittsburgh. He was born October 26, 1961 in Latrobe the Son of Joseph R. and Donna Stern Hunter. Reed attended Vanderbilt University for his Undergraduate Degree and later Duquesne University for his PhD in Psychology. He was an instructor at the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science, a Counselor at the Western Pennsylvania Penitentiary, and an Assistant Professor at Duquesne University. He was an avid reader and rare book collector.”

   I think because 52 is incredibly young, as it were, I started to think differently about this man and his books. I will take care of this book more, because of his story. I don’t know for sure about (Oliver?) or Capaldi, but I know this man’s life. He was a prof. He liked rare books. He helped counsel inmates. He, apparently, never married or did not, publicly, have a partner. I feel compelled to buy all of his books now. Yet another solitary book owner passes.

7. Janice M. Zimmerman, nee Daniel. Book stamped/impression. I like this one because she clearly had to order a new book stamp after getting married. And she was dead set on documenting this. I mean, she wrote in pen her initials and the date, as well. The thoroughness of possession is deep here. And then she promptly dumps the book into the loving arms of the University City Public Library of the greater St. Louis area where I worked as a lowly page/sorter/time-waster. A little digital digging possibly leads to her being married to a man who runs a gun-enthusiast website. Which I guess goes along with the earlier, adventure-themed Melville novels–Omoo, Typee, Mardi–which garnered him fame. I have to say that this book looks wholly unread. All that attention to detail in branding only to donate it years later.

   Who wants to do some alien phenomenology on used books? I do.