She’s Not Ready to Be Put on Shelf : Progress Is Closing the Book on Longtime Pacoima Activist as Store Lease Runs Out

Pauline Jenkins, whose activism in Pacoima 35 years ago put her face on front pages and her name on do-good committee rosters, is about to lose her stake in the community.

At 74, having long since slipped from the community forefront, Jenkins has lost the lease on her cluttered storefront shop on Van Nuys Boulevard, where she has run a used bookstore for 25 years.

“Just look at what’s happening to me now,” she said this week, surveying the towering shelves that hold tens of thousands of books and cabinets full of local memorabilia. “Everything has got to go and I don’t know where it’s all going to go to. I’m very, very shook up.”

Although she has recently found places to store the volumes temporarily, she feels overwhelmed by the task of finding another place to open a shop.

Jenkins said she became distressed and ill when her landlord notified her June 5 that the building had been sold for the expansion of the San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services office next door.

‘Couldn’t Cope With It’

“I couldn’t cope with it,” said Jenkins, who lives in a tiny apartment within walking distance of the store. “I didn’t have any place for my books.”

Landlord Donald R. Olds said he gave Jenkins 30 days to find a new place and extended the deadline two weeks, but finally was forced to file legal action to evict her. If Jenkins is not out by Sept. 4, the building sale will fall through, he said.

Jenkins’ situation has surprised several of her friends.

“Pauline was a very vital part of Pacoima. You just name any organization and she was there,” said Florence Mandel, 65, president of the Pacoima Women’s Club. “She used to help anybody out. Now the shoe is on the other foot. It’s mind-boggling to think she helped so many and nobody is around to care for her now.”

In the 1950s, Jenkins ran a successful television sales and repair shop on Van Nuys Boulevard in the heart of Pacoima. For nearly 20 years she served in dozens of organizations, from the Women’s Club to the March of Dimes to the Boys Club, until personal problems and poor health forced her to close the TV shop and reduce her involvement.

‘Gave Her Support’

“Pauline gave the community her support when we were struggling to pull ourselves together and to become a community,” said Nancy Avery, 67, Pacoima’s retired postmaster.

When the Pacoima Chamber of Commerce, which has named Jenkins a lifetime honorary member, found out about her plight this week from one of her friends, several members visited the shop and told her they would help her find another shop in Pacoima.

“I knew they were selling the building and she would have to leave, but I didn’t know how bad things were,” said Carlos Jones, chamber president. “If she had contacted me or contacted the chamber we could have helped sooner.”

But Jenkins said that’s not like her. “I’d never go around advertising that I need help,” said the small woman with a rough voice. “I had to tell my fellow book dealers. But that’s it.”

She also told customer Robert Hofman, who said he found her sobbing one afternoon when he stopped in to sell some old books.

“Here was this lady crying for me to help her,” Hofman said. “The more I heard the more pathetic it got. She was just standing, shaking.”

Hofman and two friends offered to store Jenkins’ books in a house they rent in Van Nuys until her future is clearer. For days they have been packing and hauling away box after box. Other book dealers also are storing some and the chamber has offered to take her file cabinets.

What has distressed Jenkins the most, though, is that her volumes are being moved away from her.

“Why, my books mean everything to me. Why not?” she said. “All I had left was my books and now I might not even have that. I hate separating my books.”

Wide-Ranging Collection

In a maze of shelves and cartons, Jenkins can find most any topic in a minute. She has a collection of black culture books, mysteries, crime, political science, Hollywood films, aviation. An avid reader currently on a mystery kick, she has thousands of paperbacks standing in old tissue boxes and decades-old Life magazines.

“It’s an eclectic collection with everything from ancient National Geographics to the very recent best sellers,” said Davis Dutton, owner of Dutton’s Books in North Hollywood, who has known Jenkins for years.

Most prized in her collection, Jenkins said, is her file cabinets of Pacoima history. She has minutes and rosters of what seems like every club meeting since the 1950s, glossy brochures of Van Nuys Boulevard when it was a thriving commercial center and a pamphlet from the 1957 dedication of Pacoima Memorial Lutheran Hospital, which went bankrupt early this year under the name Lake View Medical Center.