Grace Bookstore
Things have changed in Beckley and it is hard to believe that a bookstore that was so much a part of my life has closed. that is By His Grace Bookstore. It started off as Grace Bookstore back in theearly 1980's in the back of Meltons Mortuary. When I first started doing the skating parties I would borrow music from them. I would go and get the latest releases and play them. I discovered Carman and some of the other artist that were popular back then. I would look there for Christian books and my mom would look for art work, plaques or some times a funny mug. The bookstore grew and they moved over close to K-mart and they had more room and more stuff, I still went to get cards plaques or what ever. A friend and I used to go there during lunch and look at things. Eventually the folks at Grace would give me posters. As I grew in the Lord I would go there for Bibles ect.
I remember one particuarlly bad day. My mom took me there and we found a plaque that I still have to this day called "A Successful Woman". I had it hanging in my office at work for a long time. Now it hangs in my bedroom,. It is the first thing I see when I go in that room. It reads:
I remember one particuarlly bad day. My mom took me there and we found a plaque that I still have to this day called "A Successful Woman". I had it hanging in my office at work for a long time. Now it hangs in my bedroom,. It is the first thing I see when I go in that room. It reads:
She is a Successful Woman....
- Who has appreciation of the would around her
Who has the energy to devote to work and play
Who has the capicity to give of herself and accept graciously the gifts of others
Who has people she trust and is trusted by; she cares about and they care about her
Who has a zest for life and a feeling of kinship with alll living things
WHo has the enthusian to welcome each new day with warmth, and joy and love.
My mother gave me this after a bad day at work. I would have many more bad days and I would look at this and think about what the plaque said and it helped during those hard days that I faced.
As the bookstore prospered they were able to move to Beckley Crossing and I loved to go in and look for things like music , Bibles ect. When I got married I got the bulletins there .
In an interesting chain of events. A month after we got married, we started having car problems, Matt was working part time, we needed some more money coming in to the house, so I did what my mom had always done. When something happened with my dads job, my mom always went to work, she babysat, worked at the poolhouse at Black Knight Country club, worked at a small local grocery store, whatever needed to be done she did it. So being "Helen's" daughter, I decieded to look for a part time job. Then someone said that Grace Bookstore was hiring. So I sent a letter there expressing my interest and my knowledge of music and the fact that I had taught Sunday school for many years. About three weeks later I got a call from the owner and went to an interview. I was hired as a part time person working from 3PM to 7PM each evening. I go home and tell Matt, he wasn't exactly thrilled, but we needed the extra money.
My first day of work, I came from my job at WJLS and got there at 2:30PM. The first day there is always paper work to fill out In order to learn what was in the store, they started me out dusting. You go to all of the places in the store and dust. When you do this you get a first hand look at what the store has to offer. The time passed by quickly. There was only one problem, I wasn't used to working on my feet. My feet ached, so did my back. As the days went on, I was doing soundtrack orders, because of my knowledge of music, I was a big help when people would call in and not know the real title of a song, just knew a few words or some of them would actually sing part of the song to me. I could come up with the names of the soundtracks. The first time I worked the register, I was scared, but things worked out OK. I had to look close necause I am nearsighted, but things worked out OK. I caught on quickly, even the closing sequence. I worked there for exaxctly two yous. I made some grear friends and learned a great deal about customer service and people in general. We always started the day with prayer. A job when I needed one and a place to gain confidence. All I had ever done was radio, and I wanted to know that if I needed to I could do something else.
The store evetually moved to the mall, and the rent was higher, the hours were longer with on line stores such as Amazon, Christian Booksellers Assoc, and othe web sites, the day of the physical bookstore is slowly coming to an end. I will never forget thoses days of "Grace"...
In an interesting chain of events. A month after we got married, we started having car problems, Matt was working part time, we needed some more money coming in to the house, so I did what my mom had always done. When something happened with my dads job, my mom always went to work, she babysat, worked at the poolhouse at Black Knight Country club, worked at a small local grocery store, whatever needed to be done she did it. So being "Helen's" daughter, I decieded to look for a part time job. Then someone said that Grace Bookstore was hiring. So I sent a letter there expressing my interest and my knowledge of music and the fact that I had taught Sunday school for many years. About three weeks later I got a call from the owner and went to an interview. I was hired as a part time person working from 3PM to 7PM each evening. I go home and tell Matt, he wasn't exactly thrilled, but we needed the extra money.
My first day of work, I came from my job at WJLS and got there at 2:30PM. The first day there is always paper work to fill out In order to learn what was in the store, they started me out dusting. You go to all of the places in the store and dust. When you do this you get a first hand look at what the store has to offer. The time passed by quickly. There was only one problem, I wasn't used to working on my feet. My feet ached, so did my back. As the days went on, I was doing soundtrack orders, because of my knowledge of music, I was a big help when people would call in and not know the real title of a song, just knew a few words or some of them would actually sing part of the song to me. I could come up with the names of the soundtracks. The first time I worked the register, I was scared, but things worked out OK. I had to look close necause I am nearsighted, but things worked out OK. I caught on quickly, even the closing sequence. I worked there for exaxctly two yous. I made some grear friends and learned a great deal about customer service and people in general. We always started the day with prayer. A job when I needed one and a place to gain confidence. All I had ever done was radio, and I wanted to know that if I needed to I could do something else.
The store evetually moved to the mall, and the rent was higher, the hours were longer with on line stores such as Amazon, Christian Booksellers Assoc, and othe web sites, the day of the physical bookstore is slowly coming to an end. I will never forget thoses days of "Grace"...
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