My first job in the book business was as the assistant manager of the Walden Bookstore in North Riverside, Illinois, a suburb just to the west of Chicago. I was soon promoted to the manager of the Walden Books at the Yorktown Shopping Center in the suburb of Lombard, a little further to the west. My assistant manager there was Bill Schumacher, a really nice, laid-back kind of guy who just loved everything about the west. He grew up in Sterling, Illinois, a small rural Illinois town, went to college at Creighton, but had to drop out and take care of his parents after they were severely injured in a car accident. After they passed away, he moved to Lombard and began working at Walden Books. A few years after I quit my job and moved to Denver, Bill and his wife Millie came out to Colorado and visited during the summer of 1984, and my then-wife Lisa, sister Susan (who also had worked at the Yorktown bookstore), her husband George and I showed them around Colorado and Wyoming. Not too long after that trip, Millie developed breast cancer, and passed away after a brave struggle. Bill never got over that, and died not too long after Millie. A short, tragic life for both of them, but they enjoyed their time together while they could, which was good. In the photograph above, from left to right, are Bill, my sister Susan, and Millie during a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.
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