Pamela O'Meara
Who would have imagined that Winn Bundy, 82 in July, a graduate of West High
in Minneapolis, who hiked in White Bear Lake, canoed on the St. Croix River
and worked on the Gopher yearbook at the University of Minnesota would own
and operate the Singing Wind Bookshop located in her ranch house on a dusty
road a few miles north of Benson, Arizona, and her book signing events would
be listed in the Wall Street Journal?
Dressed in jeans, gray-blond hair in a long braid, the petite Bundy says she
specializes in books about the Southwest and is interested in women authors.
"I particularly have a fascination with what women have done," she says, and
she has a special section on women.
Books are arranged by size and subject, and there are sections on Indians of
the Southwest by tribe, Native American art and language, cowboy and cowgirl
poetry and humor (Her cowboy poet neighbor Baxter Black occasionally stops
by.), Jewish pioneer history, men and women of the Southwest, nature,
science, cooking, food, quilting, fires of the world, birds, architecture,
guide books, journals, history and fiction ‹ classics not bestsellers ‹ and
an inviting room of quality children's books with a child-size bench and
antique chair for sitting down to read.
³Many children come here, and we also have programs for kids at different
schools,² she says ³It¹s not true that kids don¹t read any more.²
Bundy and Kathy, her assistant of 20 years, know all the books and can find
anything visitors might like. Books are floor-to-ceiling and every little
nook and cranny is filled in the front rooms of her 1939 ranch house near
the San Pedro River.
Four times a year, Bundy invites authors in for book signings, sometimes
with music and munchies as well. In January she held a cowboy/cowgirl
round-up, February was flora, fauna and food of the Southwest and March
features a quilting trunk show.
In November, she will host a Thanksgiving fiesta featuring ³Gabby: A Story
of Courage and Hope,² a book about U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her
astronaut husband, Mark Kelly. Gifford¹s mother, Gloria, will read from the
book. The Ronstadt Generations, led by Michael J. Ronstadt, brother of
singer Linda Ronstadt, will provide musical entertainment.
When I asked if we could talk more, she invited my into her comfortable
living room so she could check incoming orders at the same time. Her dog,
Chester, a combination labrador and dalmation, wandered in and so did her
husband, Joe, who takes care of their 640-acre ranch and sells their
grass-fed beef.
³We still raise quite a few Œbeeves,¹² he says.
A former librarian at the University of Arizona for a brief period, Bundy
found the long commute tiring. With master's degrees in library science and
history, she opened her bookshop in 1974. She regularly reads reviews of new
books and goes to book conventions, while salesmen stop by her place. She
sells heavily to university and public school libraries in Arizona as well
as to individuals.
She doesn't have a computer, a website or an email address, and all books
are lovingly card-indexed by hand. She doesn¹t accept credit cards, just
checks or cash.
So how do people find her? Word of mouth followed by articles in local and
national publications do the trick. There also are reviews about her unique
bookshop online.
Word of mouth is how I found out. Two friends, formerly from Minneapolis,
parked their RV in Benson and spent an afternoon there browsing and visiting
with Bundy. They told me when I stopped to see them on my recent trip to
Arizona.
So I went to Singing Wind, where I met Susan Hood and her husband from
Boulder, Colo., who had heard about it from friends in Tubac, AZ. Hood sat
with a lapful of books to look over while talking with Bundy about women
pioneers of the Southwest.
Bundy says she has had visitors from Japan, Russia, England, Wales, Ireland,
France, Italy and Germany as well as the U.S. because she is featured in
international travel magazines.
³And a lot of Minnesotans come here, especially in the winter,² she says.
Bundy still maintains her ties to the Twin Cities by attending her high
school class reunions.
