The Aldredge Book Store — 1968
by Paula Bosse
Charlie Drum and Dick Bosse… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Today my father, Dick Bosse, would have been 84 years old. A very nice person at the DeGolyer Library at SMU (who knew my father) sent me this photo a couple of days ago. It’s from the DeGolyer’s Andy Hanson collection (Hanson was a long-time photographer for the Dallas Times Herald). Taken in the original location of The Aldredge Book Store at 2800 McKinney Avenue, the photo shows bookseller Charles Sartor Drum at the left, and my father — the then-manager of the store — at the right. My father looks really young here! Dig that cool shirt — worn with a paisley belt buckle and western-cut slacks. Hey, man, it was 1968.
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Sources & Notes
Photo is from the Collection of Photographs by Andy Hanson, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University. (Thank you, friendly DeGolyerite — I now have a 50-year-old photograph of my father I’d never seen before!)
I’ve written several posts about The Aldredge Book Store, the store my father worked at fresh out of college and after eventually owned. The ABS-related Flashback Dallas posts can be found here.
More on the career of photographer Andy Hanson can be found here and here.
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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
always one of my favorite places in dallas.
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That’s such a nice photo of your dad! I miss his wonderful knowledge.
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[…] very nice person at SMU!). (My father’s co-worker Charlie Drum is on the left.) From the post “The Aldredge Book Store — 1968.” (Source: photo by Andy Hanson, DeGolyer Library, […]
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Don’t I remember Adredge Book Store being referenced frequently on KERA in the 1970’s??? one of my first jobs in Dallas in 1974 was at Contemporary Gallery in the Quadrangle – the owner Ralph Kahn loved listening (and sharing throughout the gallery ) the KERA opera programming on Saturdays
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Was it? Maybe the store was a “sponsor” and it was mentioned after programs? By 1974 the store had moved from McKinney Avenue to Cedar Springs near Fairmount – the back of the store was across the street from the Quadrangle, a place where I hung out as a child but was always afraid I would get lost in and never be able to find my way out. The final location was on Maple Avenue at Wolf, just a couple of blocks away from KERA – several of the station’s employees and on-air personalities were regulars.
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Mimi Payne Aldredge McKnight was a close friend of my late mother, Dorothy Anne Dorsey Kella. Together they talked Sawnie into giving me an after school job of running errands for the Aldredge Book Store. This was in 1958-60. I gained a real delight in reading and book collecting while still a teenager. A store employee had a pre World War II Lincoln Continental with a V-12 engine. I was allowed to drive it a couple of times. It may have been Dick’s car. I can’t remember. Sawnie had a Citroen DS-19 with that crazy air oil suspension. I ran numerous errands in that one and was always delighted with the way that car would pitch upward or squat down whenever you started or stopped. Dick loved antique firearms. We both shared that passion. While I was working there Mimi gave me a copy of a reprint to the old Kelmscott Chaucer. It was a large “coffee table” book printed in a wonderful medieval style of calligraphy. That started my book collecting. I saw Mimi at church almost every Sunday. Mimi was number one in the choir. Her last service at Holy Cross Episcopal church was her funeral on the very day I left Dallas for my new home in the Texas Hill country. Mimi, Sawnie, Dick, and Joe McKnight were tremendous influences on me as I matured. Their memory his helping me take great delight in my second childhood!
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This is so wonderful! Thank you for writing this! I think my mother, Margaret, was also working there at the time you were there — she and my father (Dick) met there and later married. I will share your comments with Mimi and Sawnie’s children, Trip and Amy. In case you haven’t seen it, I wrote about Mimi in a post with lots of photos of the store here: https://flashbackdallas.com/2017/04/08/mimi-payne-aldredge-mcknight/
Thanks again!
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