Bob Younger: My Most Unforgettable Character

Bob Younger: My Most Unforgettable Character founder Bob Younger literally see red. More about that later. Younger owned the wellknown Morningside Bookstore on Oak Street, in Dayton, Ohio, for many years, publishing, selling, and shipping books with his wife, Mary. And he ran the business as he damn well pleased, which he told me more than once, including the fi rst time I met him, in 1987. Th rough a mutual acquaintance, I called Bob one Saturday aft ernoon and said that if he was open, I’d like to stop by and buy some books. “Suit yourself,” he said over the phone, abruptly. “I may sell you a book, or I may not.” His answer, his tone, took me totally by surprise. At the time, I too was working in retail and was unaccustomed to the Youngers’ apparent axiom that the seller, not the customer, was always right. I was soon to learn fi rsthand. Later that aft ernoon, I stopped by Historian, publisher, businessman, curmudgeon, and mentor— Bob Younger wore all those hats with his own particular style while leaving his own particular impression on me and on the Civil War community. In my fortyplus years of Civil War study, I’ve learned at the feet of the best— Ed Bearss, Shelby Foote, Bud Robertson, Bob Krick, and Wiley Sword. I’ve read Bruce Catton, Douglas Freeman, Glenn Tucker, and Harry Pfanz. I’ve tramped the battlefi elds with Jerry Russell and listened to interpretations from Dennis Frye, Marshall Krolick, Th omas Cartwright, and William Frassanito. But the man I’ve learned the most from— about books, publishing, history, and the business of history— was the man whom those close to him in the Civil War industry have oft en referred to as simply “Sweet Ol’ Bob,” a term that made Gettysburg Magazine Bob Younger My Most Unforgettable Character