Susanna Springer, the extraordinarily vital and staggeringly generous owner of Joseph’s Coat, and a close friend to many, died last Thursday night, or sometime early Friday. She was 69. She did not want an obituary, so I will do my best to avoid writing anything of the kind here.
As someone said today, for a woman so outgoing, Susanna was intensely private. It is this paradox that presents itself as we long to remember, celebrate, and embrace her, while respecting her privacy. Susanna would have sternly resisted any such fuss being made over her, for any reason at all.
A (very) brief sketch: She was born in March, 1940, in Montana, and raised in small town Montana. She later lived in New York, Norway, and the state of Georgia, with her husband. Sometime in the early 80s or mid-80s she returned to Montana, to the Bitterroot Valley, and with her mother bought Joseph’s Coat, in Missoula, at that time situated over Mammyth Bakery. The shop would occupy several more locations and, besides being a first-rate yarn shop, it was, for many, a center of social life, a place to connect. She moved from the Bitterroot to Missoula, several years ago, after the death of her mother, to a house she dearly loved — on Spruce St. — the house she lived in until the end of her life.
I became acquainted with Susanna in about 2000, after I moved the still-fledgling bookshop to North Higgins. She would pull up in her car every couple of weeks to buy books, and perhaps to get her prescriptions at A&C Drug right next door to me. Or she’d call me on the phone — “Order up!” — to order a book she’d seen covered in her beloved New York Times.
I can tell you without a doubt that Susanna Springer was one of the greatest lovers of books I ever met. I certainly never met anyone who loves books — the reading, collecting, and sharing of books — more. She was a great patron of bookstores, and exclusively local bookstores. Over the ten years or so I knew her, she was never less than fully supportive of me. She was constantly engaged with the shop, with whatever was new, with whatever was going on, with my dog, with me. She kept me on the ball in a way that no one else could. This bookshop is vastly better for Susanna’s engagement with it — and this will remain true. For this — and for many other things — I am forever in her debt.
A gathering to celebrate the memory of our friend and neighbor Susanna Springer is planned for this Sunday from noon to 3 pm. at Scotty’s Table.
Donations in Susanna’s name may be made to the Missoula Humane Society or to the Missoula Public Library.
Note: Thanks to Bari Burke, Nancy Bugbee, and Barbara Hand for helping me fill in some of the details of Susanna’s life, and to Nancy Bugbee for the photo.
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