We’re terribly sad to note the passing of an early member of the Seattle Mystery Bookshop family.
Sandy Goodrick – patron, writer, bookkeeper and bookseller, colleague, friend – died on April 11th.
Here’s the biography she had posted on our old, original website:
Sandy Goodrick was born in Santa Monica, CA, and educated in Portland, OR, and Berkeley, CA, where she lived for many years. She began reading mysteries in Seattle in 1989, and she starting helping out with the newsletter and bookkeeping at Seattle Mystery Bookshop in 1994. Her trajectory has been Nancy Drew to Sherlock Holmes to Rex Stout to Agatha Christie and the Golden Age. She enjoys a wide range of mysteries, from Lee Child and Michael Connelly, to Hazel Holt and M. C. Beaton. In the recent year she added Jasper Fforde and C.J. Box to her list of favorites. She especially enjoys British cozy or traditionals, and she’s always on the lookout for another Patricia Moyes, Caroline Graham, Jill McGown, Ann Granger, Robert Barnard, or Janet Neel.
Sandy first came to us as a leader of a reading group of mystery fans that met once a month, on a Wednesday evening. Not sure how they found us but great that they did. Digging through a fill drawer of old newsletters, I found this missive. (pardon the gritty nature of it, it’s been handled a great deal!) Considering that it is dated September 1990, and the shop had just opened in July, they found us fast .
Then owner Bill Farley had the great idea of engaging her to do a quarterly newsletter. He wrote: “Sandy Goodrick, who came in as leader of a motley group called The Seattle Mystery Readers Club; she produced such a charming newsletter for the club I asked her to create one for the shop. She’s doing it still, and along the way became our bookkeeper, too.” As far as I can tell, she produced the first one in the Fall of 1993. Interestingly, she didn’t include herself as staff.
Bill had been the bookkeeper for the shop while owner. Once he sold the joint to me at the start of 1999, we’d need a new bookkeeper. And so it was, somehow, that Bill trained Sandy on the oddities of bookkeeping for a small independent bookshop. She did the double-duty of newsletters and bookkeeper through the move to the larger space in 2005, and then handed off the bookkeeping to Fran and the newsletters to me. [photo above is from 2002 – JB, Sandy, and Erin]
In Bill’s blog post detailing how it all went down, I found a picture of of the celebration of the shop’s 15th year. [from the left, Sandy, Bill, Tammy, and Fran] Summer of 2005. Looks as if a GM Ford signing was in the works.
Here’s the obituary her son John sent:
“As with a good mystery novel, it is impossible to encapsulate Sandra Goodrick’s life in a few sentences. At best, we can recall some disparate events and milestones from her time with us in the hope that this will rekindle fond memories in the people who loved her dearly.
Sandra Lura Clark Goodrick was born on June 17, 1945 in Santa Monica, California. Sandy, as she was known to her friends, grew up moving between Santa Monica and the Midwest until she entered Reed College in 1962. In 1963, Sandy married Ray Raphael, a fellow Reedie who would go on to be a prolific historian, and the two participated actively in the civil rights movement of the early 1960’s.
After parting amicably with Ray, Sandy finished her studies in English literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where she met her second husband, the mathematician Richard Goodrick, in 1969. Sandy and Richard settled in the Berkeley hills where they had their only son, John.
In the summer of 1989, Sandy and her family moved to Seattle, where she indulged in two of her lifelong passions: gardening and mystery books. Sandy was a longtime supporter and employee of the now-defunct Seattle Mystery Bookshop on Cherry Street since its beginning in 1990. She was also the founder and principal writer of the quarterly Seattle Mystery Bookshop Newsletter, widely known and circulated among mystery lovers for many years.
Sandy spent her last years in the Ida Culver House in Ravenna and passed away peacefully in the Long House in Northgate on April 11, 2024. She is survived by her husband Richard, her half-sister Monica, her son John, her daughter-in-law Marilyn, and her granddaughter Helenna. Sandy’s wavy auburn hair, radiant smile, and love of reading live on in little Helenna.
In her leisure time, Sandy enjoyed quilting, crafting with stationery, and reading, especially “cozy” British mystery novels in the vein of Agatha Christie. She will be remembered for her warm and intimate laugh, her keen, thoughtful observations, and her devotion to her friends.”
John said this is one of his favorite photos of his Mom, from 1978.
Sandy – give Bill and B Jo and hug for us!
JB for the staff of the Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Seattle Mystery Bookshop 