Volunteers Rally to Take Friend Off the Shelf : Evicted Pacoima Bookstore Finds Home

Thanks to a handful of friends and Pacoima community leaders, Pauline Jenkins, amateur historian and owner of a Pacoima used-book store, is getting back into business after being evicted from the shop she operated on Van Nuys Boulevard for 25 years.

“I’ve been missing my books since summer,” Jenkins said, surrounded by six-foot-high stacks of boxes.

“I certainly am relieved to have them all back with me. Now, if I can just get all these boxes open and get back to running my bookstore.”

Jenkins, a civic volunteer who participated in organizations ranging from the Chamber of Commerce to the Women’s Club in the 1950s, almost lost her place in the community last August when she was evicted from her store a week before her 75th birthday.

She was physically unable to move her books and could not afford to pay someone to do it.

But help poured in from friends and from the groups she had once supported.

“We couldn’t lose Pauline. She has been in this community for more than 30 years,” said Carlos Jones, president of the Pacoima Chamber of Commerce. “Over the years, Pauline has collected more information about Pacoima than anyone else. If we lost her, we would lose our history.”

The chamber found volunteer movers. Her physician, Dr. Bruce Hector, donated $500 to rent storage for her books. Members of the Pacoima Coordinating Council searched for another shop along Van Nuys Boulevard.

A building several blocks from her old shop was found, and volunteers this week were again moving Jenkins’ books, which filled eight 15-by-5-foot storage rooms.

This time, though, she says, the boxes seem like holiday gifts to open.

“I want to keep and care for these books and things as long as I can,” she said. “You might figure these books aren’t worth it and I should have sold them all or set a match to them. But I just couldn’t do it. I’m too attached to them all.”

Jenkins, who once owned a television store across the street from her new location, said she wants to open the new book shop in February, the same month she opened the television business.

“I want it to be just like the grand opening on Valentine’s Day, 1954,” she said. “But I do need to get all these books back on shelves. I have 25 years of work to unpack.”