Closing the book on South Side store

The store's owner says she's sad but not bitter.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- With each hesitant, hobbling step, Peggy McKissick edges closer to the end of her dream.
All she ever wanted in life was to be among her books -- reading them, talking about them, and most of all, helping her customers find just the right one.
But now, after living that dream happily for 22 years, she finds it hard to even walk across the sales floor of Twice-Loved Books.
Multiple sclerosis is forcing her to write the last chapter of the store, which stocks 100,000 books in two old homes on Midlothian Boulevard. Three years after learning she had MS, she can no longer manage the business, so she is holding a liquidation sale and expects to close in a month.
She says she's sad but not bitter.
'Personal riches'
"It's been a wonderful life. It's given me riches -- not financial riches but personal riches," she said.
McKissick, 52, recalls the days when she bounded up and down the stairs of the three-story buildings 30 to 40 times a day.
Now, she uses a cane to balance as she slowly and carefully places her feet on each step.
Still, her failing legs and eyes aren't the main reasons she has to give up the business.
"MS is a draining disease. It leaves you with two hours of energy, and then you're down for two to three hours," she said.
The business needs her at full strength to beat the obstacles it faces as a small retailer in the city.
Chain store has hurt
The large Barnes & amp; Nobles Booksellers in Boardman has taken away much of her sales of new books. Now, just 10 percent of her sales come from new books, compared with 40 percent 10 years ago.
The Internet also provides competition as area residents have many more options for buying new and used books. On the other hand, the store has developed a successful Internet sales business itself, with $200 to $300 a day in online sales.
Also hurting is the reluctance of suburban shoppers to come to the South Side. McKissick said increasing numbers of customers are saying they are afraid to visit the store, even though she says she has never had a single crime, including vandalism.
Medical expenses
To make matters worse, she hasn't been able to reinvest in the store recently because of her medical expenses. Soon after she canceled the store's health-care coverage for employees because of rising costs, she learned she had MS.
As McKissick started to say she could have saved the store if it weren't for MS, her husband, Gary, interrupted.
"If you were able, you'd be fighting it all and winning," he said.
He works in the store with a few other longtime employees, but McKissick said the business wouldn't work without her guiding hand.
"The owner has to be in the store," she said.
She isn't giving up books entirely, however. Her plans are to work from home by selling books on the Internet, although she will have a much smaller collection.
She always has had a knack for finding rare books. The store can search for individual books but also has an unusual collection on the shelves, including a private library she bought a year ago of books on communism, socialism and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
Other topics include fiction, westerns, cooking, film history, religion, history and poetry.
"I read across the board, whatever appeals to me at the moment," McKissick said.
Previous careers
McKissick, who has a master's degree in psychology, had been a school counselor and then a counselor for women when she decided to pursue her dream. She opened a store in Poland before moving to Youngstown.
Books had been her love since growing up on a small island in Maine, where reading was her main entertainment.
"That's what I wanted to do -- be locked in a building with books," she said.
shilling@vindy.com