"I can learn a lot about poetry by listening to birds, for example, or by listening to trees.  They speak ancient languages.  and if I can't exactly transcribe them word for word, at least I can make some kind of counterpart in my own language."

~ Robert Bringhurst, poet, quoted in "In Person," The Globe and Mail, 24 June, 1995.

Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books

71 Quuen Street, St. Catharines, Ontario

Hannelore Heinemann Headley and her family were in Nazi Germany on the night known in history as Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," November 8, 1938.  The following year they fled to Shanghai, China, to escape the Nazi and the Holocaust.

After fourteen years of "challenge laced with joys and sadness," Hannelore's family were once again forced to flee, this time ~ the Communist takeover.  "It seemed that once again, the inmates had taken over the asylum," she writes in her book Blond China Doll, A Shanghai Interlude 1939 - 1953.

Bibliomaniacs have made the pilgrimage to Hannelore Headley's Old & Fine Books in St. Catharines for over forty years.  Hannelore passed away on June 15, 2013 spelling the end of an era.  Her bookshop business has been sold.  Cathy, Hannelore's employee of fifteen years, is still there sitting behind the familiar desk.  There are perhaps a few less papers congesting the area but the book-stuffed rooms remain the same.  Make the pilgrimage to Queen Street ~ support the little bookshop with the legendary story.

Hannelore Heinemann Headley 1936 ~ 2012

Triple H Publishing St. Catharines, Ontario