Bible Depot Helps Them That Help Themselves

With its vibrant blue exterior, Bible Depot catches the eye of passing visitors and locals alike. Well, the paint job isn’t the most eye-catching aspect of the outside of the store, not when ‘Bible Depot” is sprawled, with large white letters, across the side of the building that faces out onto Front Street. Though, its old yellow façade might have been more intriguing to the eye but more crowded aesthetically. Its doors have been open for going on 88 years, having opened in 1931 originally on Main Street but then moving in the early 1940s to where it is now on Front Street. Sunbury is not a particularly wealthy town, with the median household income averaging around $32,000, according to the Data USA (Data USA). But the amount of businesses on the main road is telling that businesses still thrive in this area.

Another large part of Sunbury is the community of churches, there are many Christian churches, as well as other places of worship in the area surrounding the bookstore. This store, everything it has done for the community, all of it, started with little bibles handed out by the Reverend who founded the store. And then, when the WKOK-AM radio station went on the air in 1933, Reverend Ney appeared every week to advertise for the store.

Shortly after Nancy assumed ownership in 1970, pastors from the local churches came into the store and threatened to boycott Bible Depot for carrying a controversial chick tract – a short evangelical gospel tract. Nancy said she spent a lot of time debating about whether to discontinue the chick tract or to continue to sell it and after a lot of praying she decided not to carry the chick tract anymore. The store was never actually boycotted, but this is a particularly outstanding instance of discomfort between the store and the community. But this store has built a strong community, one that has grown through the hardships of area floods and local controversy. This store has become a staple within Sunbury, a true symbol representing the community of which it is a part. Bible Depot tells us a story through its history from its simple beginnings with Reverend Ney handing out Bibles door to door to Nancy’s current ownership of this treasure hunt of a store.

The store controls its own narrative by the way it is set up to appease its customers. This store has become particularly significant as it is not only a store, but a home to its owner. Bible Depot represents an inspiring tale of small business culture through how a tiny, family-run bookstore became what it is today. All the customers who enter the store are welcomed graciously and are considered to be a part of that family. One of the most important things about Bible Depot is how accepting it is of a diversity of religious backgrounds and all walks of life. It is a place that is constantly changing, not necessarily always in terms of its physical appearance, but because of the people that visit and shape the store into the place that it is and the role it plays within the Sunbury community.

 

Our experiences visiting Bible Depot gave us a lot of insight into the type of identity and mission the store is trying to project. As you walk through the store, you are fully immersed in a collection that has been carefully curated by Nancy Ney to reflect not only her personal interests, but the interests of everyone in Sunbury and the surrounding community. Tim Cresswell helps us to understand Bible Depot as it is immersed in this community not just as a space, but as a place – a meaningful location defined by its physical location, its local and its sense of place (Cresswell). Using the historical contrasting ideas of place, mentioned by Laura Miller, as reactionary and exclusionary and as open and progressive (constantly contingent and in flux) it seems that somehow, Bible Depot fits both of these descriptors.

Bible Depot functions as a gathering place – a place for anyone to congregate and commune within a “family” setting. When we look at the world as a world of places we see “attachments and connections between people and place. We see worlds of meaning and experience” (Cresswell 11). Bible Depot is an oasis in which a world of meaning and experience has been created within its walls. Nancy herself told us that Bible Depot is a place full of miracles, a place where people may not necessarily come in to buy things but might just come in to have a seat and have someone to talk to, to comfort them and to give them a coffee. She claims that it’s a people place and that “we’re here to bless others with the blessings God has given to us and when we see a need, we ask God for guidance and we pray for people and try to give them guidance.” This home-like quality of Bible Depot establishes it as not only a store where customers come to purchase things they may need or want, but as an actual “place,” a gathering, a community.

Bible Depot is greatly defined by its history, its owner, and its customers, but the one thing around which all these influences is centered is the collection housed within the store. The diversity and seemingly chaotic nature of the collection is at first a little confusing to visitors to the store. However, the more you examine the way the collection is structured, you begin to see that it is, in fact, a type of organized chaos and that everything has been carefully selected and placed exactly where it is meant to be.

To understand the store’s collection, you first have to appreciate its definition of literature. To do this, you have to have a firm grasp on the concept of self-care. There is a common misconception that self-care is a very individualized process, only applicable or usable by one person for themself. However, the term itself implies some entity taking care of itself; this could be an individual or even a community. In the case of Bible Depot, the definition of literature endorses a narrative of self-care both at the individual and the community level. Because Nancy Ney has created a collection with the interests of her community in mind, her collection acts as self-care for that entire community. We can see this literature of self-care on the individual level through the books in the “main” book room, housing books on divorce, prayer, counseling, etc. Yet on the other side of the store, there is a room we frequently call the “children’s room,” containing anything from posters and board games to Sunday school supplies, activity books, sheet music, stickers, and more. It seems, at first, difficult to fit this room into the store’s literature as defined by self-care. However, this seems to be a room that subscribes more to the idea of community self-care. This room provides customers with ways to better their community either through music, through fellowship and games, or through sharing religion with children. Furthermore, in the front room in which the cash register sits, there are many display cases of jewelry and other trinkets of either something symbolically religious or engraved with a scripture verse. These, too, fit into the narrative of self-care as those who purchase these items are seeking to carry a piece of reassurance and hope with them, close to their hearts wherever they go.

It is true that Bible Depot is filled with many “things,” but these things are more than just mere objects lined up along shelves. In the fifth installment of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a group of Hogwarts students, who lovingly call themselves Dumbledore’s Army, come across a room known as the “Room of Requirement.” This room somehow knows what its visitors need and upon entering the room, anything and everything someone needs is readily available within its stone walls. Sometimes more than one person may need the same thing and the room will adapt to those needs. All one has to do to make the room appear is walk past the section of blank wall three times concentrating very deeply on what they need. Bible Depot is, in a way, a Room of Requirement for the Susquehanna Valley community. Because the store provides self-help to both the individual and the community it holds anything and everything someone might neeed and specifically holds the things that people may not even know they need, but should have, whether that’s children or adults. It’s like a scavenger hunt resource room just waiting to be discovered by those who need it.

It is very difficult to walk into Bible Depot and not immediately feel imbued with the spirit and attitude with which the store is so heavily infused. While visitors to the store are, yes, surrounded by objects, they are also surrounded by “things.” Bruno Latour tells us that when we have little investment in something we are more likely to view things as mere objects and not as these multidimensional “things.” Though all the objects in the store have a monetary value assigned to them, they also have an inherent spiritual and personal value. Nancy Ney views all the objects in her store as “things” and has ascribed so much meaning and attachment to each thing that this kind of connection is therefore encouraged in every customer who walks through her doors. The contents of the store, as well as the store itself, are not mere tools, but are necessarily things that can provide fulfillment, enrichment, and meaning to our lives.

In Philipp Bloom’s book To Have and to Hold, he explains that “by surrounding ourselves with objects we hope to immerse ourselves in what is represented by them, with what they represent to us who are unwilling to accept that it will always remain elusive and cannot be locked into things” (Bloom 156). Here we see that Bloom has a bit of a different definition of “things” from Latour, one that probably aligns more closely to Latour’s conception of objects. However, Bloom’s idea is still valid. It is often not easy to distill the meaning of objects and therefore we must make the conscious effort to immerse ourselves in what is represented by them. Likewise, we must also examine what these objects represent to us though these representations may sometimes seem elusive and difficult to decipher.

This idea very much reflects our experience getting to know Bible Depot. At first it was exceedingly difficult to understand the meaning or purpose of any of the objects individually and consequently the message of the store and everything it stands for. But to find the answer, one need look no further than the heart of the store itself – the Bible Room. This room is the most important “place” in the store and is also home to the most important ”thing” in the store. The Bible Room is quite literally the heart of the bookstore situated just between Nancy’s home and the store around it. It is representative of the origins of Bible Depot and all the history that has accompanied it, as well as being the store’s namesake. When we consider all the ways in which Bible Depot is a gathering, a collection of “things” and a place in which literature is understood as a self-conscious narrative of self-care and reflection for the individual and the community, we can see that this small blue house on nestled along the Susquehanna River is much more than a store or resource. It is an oasis, a home, an idyllic escape and refuge for all who wish for or require it.

 

 

 Citations 

Text 

Benjamin, Walter. “Unpacking My Library.” Illuminations, edited by Hannah Ardent, Schocken Books, pp. 59–67. 

Bloom, Philipp. To Have and To Hold. Harry N. Abrams, 2004. 

Delaney, Carol. “Spatial Locations.” Investigating Culture, John Wiley & Sons, 2011, pp. 37–67 

Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concerns.” JSTOR, The University of Chicago Press, May 2004, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/421123?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. 

Miller, Peter. “The Chronicle Review.” How Objects Speak, 10 Sept. 2014, s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/57a9d55a4370f/585932?response-content-disposition=inline; filename*=UTF-8”How Objects Speak – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.pdf&response-content-type=application/pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20190501T184226Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ/20190501/us-east-1/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=7b820ab50c309fb3a0250aac3974fb25cf3902ca4168533d961c5f7e262fe5a4. 

Rowling, J.K. Order of the Phoneix. Bloomsbury Publisher, 1997. 

Online  

Data USA “Employment by Industries” chart. https://datausa.io/profile/geo/sunbury-pa/ 

“Google Maps.” Google Maps. Google, n.d. Web. 1 May 2019, http://maps.google.com/. 

“Time Graphics.” Time Graphic. Time.Grapjic, n.d. Web. 1 May 2019, https://time.graphics/line/234320 

Thinglink,” Thinglink.com. Web. 1 May 2019 

Pictures 

Bucci, John. Bible DepotSunbury, Pennsylvania

Chobanoff, Anna. Bible Depot, 1 May 2019, Sunbury, Pennsylvania

WKOK Radio Station. <http://www.eagle107.com/Eagle_107/107_Station_History.htm>

At The Center Of It All: Bibles

When entering Bible Depot, the feeling of the merchandise leaning in close to whisper, “Come in, please, look around,” was close to my first experience when walking into the bookstore. When the door opens the customer is faced with shelves, a wide variety of a collection rests on these shelves, the most prominent being the first communion trinkets and mementos. My only thought to the placement of these items is a convenience for those coming in, perhaps for returning customers or local churchgoers of the area. At this point, the customer is led to the right, from the commonality of customers moving right (due to most people being right-handed) but another reason is that the left pathway is through a doorway, small and seemingly more closed off than the right path.

I myself took the right path on my first-time visit to Bible Depot. This area was of more interest to me on the basis that they had trinkets that had personalized items with names on them (I tell you now, they did not have the name I was looking for at the time (Tazwell, my brother) but not to fear, they may have yours!). This is of note because shop owners will place certain merchandise to the right because of the customer traffic and the higher probability of getting customers to purchase these items. This may be something that the owner of the bookstore has thought about, but also the layout of the bookstore makes this hard to combat as the store is physically built to be that way.

Another tactic for shop owners is to have the customer move through as much merchandise as possible before checkout so that the customers are incentivized to buy more on their trip. Bible Depot uses this tactic, but the use of it is so natural as the entire store has trinkets and small items that catch the eye. The current owner, Nancy, describes the style of the store as “crunchy”. While I don’t know exactly what that means I can interpret that this bookstore has a different feel than most other bookstores. Some sections are labeled by genre but most of the shelves are filled to the brim with miscellaneous objects and things, no room for anything else to be displayed without chaos erupting. Each item seems to have found a place in every nook and cranny of the store, which gives it a nostalgically claustrophobic feel (in the best way possible). The store comes alive with objects at every corner and gives the store a personality all of its own.

Photo by Anna Chobanoff

One room that seems especially alive is “The Bible Room”, this is not its actual name but it is what my group has come to call it. It’s aptly named as the only things on the shelves are bibles of all sorts, stretching from children’s bibles to large print, sizes from small to large. A desk stands in the middle with bookmarks and a small instructional on how to properly open your bible. The room is small, I can stretch my arms out and worry about hitting the other side. This room almost lies at the center of the store, you have to go through three doorways to get to it like it’s nestled into the building. Being the creative writer that I am, I can see how meaning can be grasped from the fact that the Bible Room rests at the center of this place. This store, everything it has done for the community, all of it, started with little bibles handed out by the Reverend who founded the store. And the bookstore is named Bible Depot, it makes sense that one room would be dedicated to this type of book. The Bible is, metaphorically, the foundation of this store and it is also, literally, the center of the store.

Photo by Anna Chobanoff

While the placement of the books, and other items, is important to the overall layout of a bookstore the items themselves hold stories and sentimental weight. Look around yourself, do you see items that you got recently, maybe some you bought a while ago? Do you see an item from your childhood that you’ve held onto for all these years? What story does it contain for you, what does it symbolize?

Walter Benjamin in “Unpacking My Library” says, “Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories” (60). Benjamin points out that while books and other items have a utilitarian value, to be used and read, they also contain memories and stories that mean something to the reader (the collector). Benjamin talks of a “magic circle” that is the collector’s alone, in which items are brought into and made special by the collector.

Photo by Brianna Simmons

When I first visited Bible Depot, Nancy was happy to speak with us and when we went to leave she offered us free rocks. These rocks were inscribed with phrases from the Bible. Normally, this wouldn’t hold any meaning to me, in fact, I could have not taken a rock if I truly did not want one. But I did take one (after searching for the phrase I liked the most) and when I got back to my room I displayed it on my desk with other trinkets. I took an item, seemingly with no “use” and put it in a place where I would see it daily. And now it holds that memory of the store, of Nancy, and of my group.

Peter Miller in his article “What Objects Mean” says, “The point was concisely stated by Ringelblum: If the ephemeral objects were not collected, and if the journalistic, social-science reports not commissioned, and if all of it were not preserved, then no one would believe that such a place had existed.” There is weight to the presence and preservation of books. Miller puts emphasis on artifacts from the Holocaust and the movement to preserve them to remember the past. As if the only way to capture the past is to hold onto it tightly and give meaning to objects in a memory’s place.

I believe Bible Depot captures this in a different way. It has stood as a staple for Sunbury since 1931. The building itself has seen the passage of time, it has experienced the floods just as much as the people and the people of the town give their own ideas of what Bible Depot means to them. If Bible Depot were to disappear, what would it leave behind to remember it by? The answer to that is the community it has built, the people that come in and volunteer to work, the people that shop and know Nancy personally. The bookstore gives life to the merchandise it sells and gives the items meaning, but it is the people that give meaning to the bookstore.

 

SOURCES

TEXT

Benjamin, Walter, et al. Illuminations: Schocken Books, 2013.

Miller, Peter N. “How Objects Speak.” Chronicle.com, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 Aug. 2014, www.chronicle.com/article/How-Objects-Speak/148177/.

PHOTOS

Photos by Anna Chobanoff and Brianna Simmons

FLOOR PLAN

Designed on www.thinglink.com

The Longevity of Niche Bookstores

Comparison of the paint jobs of the building before and after 2013. Left image from Google Street View, right image taken by Brianna Simmons.

A Brief History of Bible Depot

Bible Depot opened in Sunbury, Pennsylvania in 1931 (exact date unknown) on Market Street, the hub of activity for the town. At some point in the 1940s, the owner, Reverend James C. Ney, wanted to expand and decided more space was needed to stock the store properly, so they moved location from Market Street to Front Street, still in Sunbury. With this new location, James C. Ney added onto the building to make it larger to fit more inventory, which is the building they are currently in. Recently, around 2013, they repainted their store from yellow and blue to blue and white.

Historical Floods: Susquehanna River at Sunbury, Pennsylvania chart

While being on Front Street, they are closer to the river wall that protects the residential and business buildings from the river rising, this doesn’t always help either as they have suffered from multiple floods. The worst of which is the flood of 1972, the only flood classified as “major” for the town of Sunbury. The bookstore has flooded multiple times, the water going as far as up to people’s knees, plenty of books were damaged as the store’s stock is housed on the floor to ceiling shelves. These damages were felt by the whole community as the town is mainly residential.

Bible Depot In Relation To Other Niche Bookstores

Nevertheless, Bible Depot has soldiered on and is still open despite setbacks prone to independent bookstores. Sadly, independent bookstores throughout the years have been subject to closing because of chain bookstores and online platforms for the sake of convenience. Especially niche bookstores, bookstores that tailor to a specific demographic, suffer the same fate as well. Two examples that come to mind are African American bookstores and feminist bookstores, both of which have a contentious history in the United States. The main reason being that their inherent political activism rubs people of the differing opinion the wrong way.

Looking at the African National Memorial Bookstore, a New York City-based African American bookstore founded in 1932, and New Words Bookstore, a feminist bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts opened in 1974, I draw comparisons to Bible Depot. All three of these bookstores serves a specific demographic of people as its main clientele, making them niche bookstores. The African National Memorial Bookstore served mainly African Americans of all ages during the rise of the Civil Rights movement. New Words Bookstore served women, as well as everyone in the education of women in literature and women who write. Bible Depot serves those who are Christian (mainly, there is a small Jewish section), this is their demographic.

The prominent difference between these three bookstores is that Bible Depot is the only one still open to this day. Which is surprising to me, considering the African National Memorial Bookstore opened just the year after Bible Depot. What is the reason for this? In a sense, it would make more sense for the African National Memorial Bookstore to still be continuing, for reasons such as it reaches a larger audience, positioning in a larger city, and more eye-catching advertising (their storefront was very busy). Nancy Ney, the current owner of Bible Depot, says that they don’t spend money on advertising so that the money can go directly back into the bookstore. They have a simple sign that has their name, hours, days closed, and some items they sell at the time of year (the most recent photo advertising their February items). So what are the differences between these two that led to Bible Depot staying open and the African National Memorial Bookstore closing?

Well, the African American bookstore had a contentious life with local police and even the FBI. “FBI agents were ordered to identify black bookstores’ employees and customers, track which books they sold, scrutinize finances, and determine any links they had to local or national Black Power or Communist organizations” (Davis, 63–64). Obviously, no such thing has been done to Bible Depot, this is simply to demonstrate the local and national discrimination that was done to all African American bookstores of the time. To compare the two, Bible Depot doesn’t have any political power rooting against it. The African National Memorial Bookstore lost its building due to rows with the local authorities. Being a black activist bookstore at the time was hard, especially since the government was actively wanting it to be shut down. Bible Depot is a different issue altogether, there is no point in which Christians have been as marginalized as African American people in the United States. This is a prominent difference between the two.

The successes of these bookstores are also linked to the time they were established and with what activist groups they were involved in. In the case of the African National Memorial Bookstore and New Words Bookstore, they were tied to political movements of the time, the Civil Rights movements and the women’s rights movements respectively. Turning to Bible Depot, this sort of political allegiance cannot be seen as with the other two bookstores.

Now, looking at New Words Bookstore in comparison to Bible Depot is different altogether. “New Words closed as a bookstore in October 2002 and reopened as the Center for New Words” (Spain, 108) which closed in 2009. This bookstore was a local hotspot for everyone, not only women. Though that might have been their purpose at first, New Words Bookstore became a place where a variety of people of all ages, ethnicities, and faiths to come and educate themselves. The bookstore also had a strong community built around it, for example, New Words Bookstore was “a politicized gathering space for the feminist community. It was an important social nexus for the exchange of information about significant events, such as an abortion clinic shooting” (Spain, 106). People would come and gather and talk about issues relating to the community they shared.

Bible Depot has a strong community as well, with twelve churches in a 1.5-mile vicinity they have a lot to offer their community. Also, all of their employees volunteer their time to be there and serve the bookstore. Bible Depot will also fully fund any vacation bible school and give supplies for teaching. They want to give back to the community that has served it for almost 88 years, though they have served the community in good faith for just as long.

Perhaps it is unfair to compare Bible Depot to these activist bookstores. It needs to be said that Bible Depot is not advocating for any reform to African American rights or women’s rights, but it does promote tolerance and acceptance. The bookstore has a variety of literature for people of all ages, ethnicities, and faiths (going back to the Jewish section), this can also be seen in New Words Bookstore. Promoting intersectionality in literature and community is an important thing and both of these bookstores try their best to promote that line of thinking.

But all of this still begs the question: Why did these two bookstores close while Bible Depot still continues to operate? There are a lot of reasons to look at: First, they have no authority begging for their close like the African National Memorial Bookstore. Second, they have no competition from big chain stores in the immediate vicinity. Third, they have a strong community behind them that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon. These reasons show the type of bookstore Bible Depot really is: a hub of activity for Sunbury, among its church community but also the entirety of Sunbury.

Bible Depot is truly a marvel of independent bookstores and niche bookstores in history. Their community has stuck with them through the years and it has gotten them this far. Hopefully, it also supports them for a long time in the future.

 

Sources

Chart

US Department of Commerce, and Noaa. “Historical Floods: Susquehanna River at Sunbury, Pennsylvania.” National Weather Service, NOAA’s National Weather Service, 19 Mar. 2016, 7:41:35, www.weather.gov/media/marfc/FloodClimo/MSL/Sunbury.pdf.

Google Street View Photo

Google. “Google Street View.” Google Street View Maps, Google, Sept. 2012, www.google.com/maps/@40.8647585,-76.7956673,3a,75y,102.56h,91.38t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sy09TqRQ3sY9gnpCcwi7Qow!2e0!7i13312!8i6656.

Photos

Photos were taken by Brianna Simmons

Text

Davis, Joshua Clark. From Head Shops to Whole Foods The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs. Columbia University Press, 2017.

“Feminist Bookstores: Building Identity.” Constructive Feminism: Women’s Spaces and Women’s Rights in the American City, by Daphne Spain, 1st ed., Cornell University Press, 2016, pp. 84–110. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt18kr5mx.8.

Timeline

“Free Online Timeline Maker.” New Timeline – Timeline, time.graphics/.

Bible Depot: 88 Years in the Making

Almost 100 years ago, a small business had a grand opening that not only changed their lives but affected many people around them. In 1931, Bible Depot, a Christian bookstore, was established by Reverend James C. Ney in Sunbury, PA. Unfortunately, Reverend James is no longer with his bookstore, but I was able to talk to his daughter in law, Nancy Ney, when I visited the establishment. I was so fortunate to sit down with Nancy and discuss the history of Bible Depot and the affects it had on its community. To think that Bible Depot has been around for 88 years is astonishing. Not only has it lived through major historic events, but it has grown internally and externally as a business and family.

Timeline of Bible Depot’s Important Events

A Building’s Life Story

Relocation in 1940 to Front Street

When Bible Depot was first established in 1931, it was grounded on Market Street in Sunbury, PA. This original location was inserted into the heart of Sunbury where the majority of the town’s population would visit and do most of their extra circular activities. This gave Bible Depot the advantage of traffic and interactions with the overflow from the movie theatre, shops, Weis and many more businesses along the street. It wasn’t shortly after when Reverend James C. Ney wanted to relocate due to the lack of space. Though it has always been a Christian supply store, they wanted a bigger floorplan to expand there inventory and selection.

Thinking about a new location, the owner specially scoped out this building on Front Street because of its busy traffic pattern and view of the Susquehanna River. Unfortunately, their move in 1940 was just shy of the new flood wall which was built along the river between 1947-1951. Though the view was taken away, this didn’t stop Bible Depot from staying. In fact, Bible Depot has been at this location ever since 1940. A major reason why the Reverend wanted to remain at 122 N Front Street was for the effects of this railroad town. By being emerged next to a railroad, Bible Depot was able to gain a wider range of customers and supplies. When I asked more about the building itself, I was moved by the transformation Bible Depot went through to uphold the look it wears today. As displayed in the photo above, the original façade was a pale yellow with painted on words and religious symbols. While talking to Nancy about the building, she mentioned how she often prayed about how to change or update the building while still keeping the emotional ties to the family. Though her and her daughter did not agree on a color at first, they compromised for the blue that still covers the walls to this day. After a couple months passed by Nancy Ney wanted to get a custom sign created for the street side wall but could not afford it at the time. Miraculously, after a customer came into the store and chatted with Nancy about her issue, he graciously offered to make her letters that spelt out “Bible Depot” for free. I may not be super religious, but when good deeds happen for deserving people, my spiritual levels rise and I get hope that someone of higher power is looking out for us.

It Runs in the Family

Reverend James C. Ney with his wife and grandchildren

Bible Depot has been family-run since it opened in 1931. Reverend James C. Ney started this business to bring awareness to Christianity in Sunbury but also to help support other religious groups in the community. According to Nancy, “he put everything into this store because he loved being able to share God’s words to those in need”. Once Reverend James passed away, the business was left in the hands of his family. It wasn’t shortly after when the Reverend’s son, David A. Ney, met Nancy and their relationship began. Around 1970, they began running the business together and would find ways to increase the value. Seeing how this was a house, David wanted to build an addition onto the building to give them larger retail space. When you walk in the front door, all the rooms to the right were added in the mid 1970’s. Today the second floor is split up into two rented apartments with a back entrance of the store. Once Nancy and David had kids, they raised them upstairs while still managing the business. Their children grew up tending to the store with their parents and playing when not at school. As Tim Cresswell mentions in his passage, Defining Place, “It is clear that places almost always have a concrete form”(7). It’s interesting to think that for Bible Depot, this may not be true. For it is a business, home, support group, etc. Yes, you can see physically see all of these attributes, but what is most important is understanding what they mean.

Nancy Ney outside the store with her children

In terms of business growth in Bible Depot, while it started and still is a Christian supplies store, it wasn’t always that diverse. Since Nancy never knew her father, she wasn’t quite sure what religious group she fell under. Right before her mother passed, Nancy was informed that her father was Jewish which sparked many connections in Nancy’s life. This was the cause of the Jewish sections and multiple cultural devices throughout the store. By integrating more books, products and services from other religions, Nancy was able to enhance the relationships with more individuals throughout Sunbury.

God is Greater than Highs and Lows

If you look at the sales charts for Bible Depot throughout history, there wouldn’t be drastic changes. This business has kept a moderate income throughout its 88 years of being in business. Other than the financial aspect of Bible Depot, there hasn’t been much chaos between the store and public. Although, roughly when Nancy began working here with her husband, there was an incident with the local churches during the 70’s which lasted for a couple of years. Wanting to spread the word of Christ, Bible Depot began to handout bibles to locals and prison ministries. The churches were not in agreement with their actions towards the prisons and started to protest the store. Though pastors come through regularly to buy supplies for their churches, the protestors did not seem to understand why she was passing out bibles to “criminals”. This protest soon seized and Bible Depot was back to its normal ways. In Reading ‘A Global Sense of Place’ by Tim Cresswell, he states that “some groups make quite positive and inclusive attempts to tap into a place’s history or promote a particular notion of place as an act of resistance”(75). Why the protest may have cause some negative feelings, it made Bible Depot stronger by reminding them why they do what they do.

Looking past their short discrepancies with the churches, Bible Depot has grown exponentially since then. This business is run strictly by family and local volunteers. All their income goes directly into the store and helping out the community. Free workshops are held on Market Street with free food provided by Bible Depot and local restaurants. They highly encourage people to attend Vacation Bible School in the area and if cost is an issue, they will happily provide bibles and any other supplies needed. Their demographic has grow in terms of race, gender, religion, etc. At the time of my interview with Nancy, she mentioned how she recently had roughly 45 customers in the store at once. The support Bible Depot and its customers have for each other have made this community stronger than it has ever been.

A Simple Gesture

Rocks from Bible Depot

The amount of history behind one business can be extraordinary, that is if you can learn about it. I do have to say, it was very hard to obtain information on specific dates and the building in general due to the lack of public access about their history. Bible Depot tends to put the majority of their funds towards the store rather than in advertising and social media. I am so grateful that Nancy Ney was so welcoming and took time out of her day to sit down and discuss the history of Bible Depot. Hearing stories from the woman who put everything into the store and has shared her life with this community was an unbelievable experience. Though it was difficult to come across information in the public domain, part of me believes that meeting Nancy was God’s doing. Being face to face helped me truly understand how important this place means to her, the customers and volunteers. As I was leaving my interview with Nancy at Bible Depot, she told me to pick a rock out of the basket on my way out. That simple gesture made a bigger impact on me than she may have ever know. From now on, I look at this rock and think of James C. Ney because without him, Bible Depot wouldn’t have reached the hearts that it has for 88 years.

"But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

faith fulness, gentleness, and self-control." Gal 5:22-23

Sources

Photos

  • N.d. Flickriver. Web. 26 Feb. 2019. <http://www.flickriver.com/places/United+States/Pennsylvania/Sunbury/>
  • Photos provided by Nancy Ney
  • Photos provided by John Bucci

Timeline

  • N.d. Time Graphics. Web. 26 Feb. 2019. <https://time.graphics/line/233654>

Interview

  • Nancy Ney. Personal Interview. 20 Feb. 2019.

Text

  • Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004.
  • Cresswell, Tim. Reading ‘A Global Sense of Place’. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004.

Building Community Around Religion

Growing up I attended church every Sunday, though, being as young as I was, I was stuck in Sunday school. Now, I have not set foot in a church for no other reason than voting in elections. But even though I no longer attend, the church is a center point for community and togetherness in the places where I have lived. Most churches reach beyond the surface level worship services and offer other means of helping the community such as local clothing drives, fundraisers for schools and other nearby businesses, and sponsoring events hosted in or nearby by their locations. In my experience, the community surrounding the church can be felt by others other than those who attend.

Photo by Brianna Simmons

Bible Depot sits on the edge of North Front Street, one of the main sources of customer traffic, in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Situated on the outskirts of the town it sits away from the main street that runs through Sunbury, putting it in a residential location. It looks like a house made into a bookstore, blending into the community, though the sign out front makes it stand out for what it is. But, this bookstore is more than it seems as it is the center point for all nearby churches, of which there are 12. Church supplies, Bibles, other books, and gifts are sold here. The most interesting of which, to me, is the church supplies. This bookstore, with its other merchandise, services a potential 12 churches within a 1.5-mile radius.

Also shown in the map are a Masonic Temple, a Spiritual Center, an Islamic Center, and a synagogue. I chose to include these other places of worship and community as it is necessary to look at other religions and how they show up in the neighborhood. Of course, these places of worship might not interact with Bible Depot at all for various reasons such as they do not carry products for other religions other than Christianity. But these places of worship are in the same vicinity and share the same local community of Sunbury.

Sunbury has a population of 9,705 as of 2016. Looking at the ethnicity statistics of the town at the time shows that “there were 14.9 times more White residents (8,793 people) in Sunbury, PA than any other race or ethnicity. There were 591 Hispanic and 258 Black residents, the second and third most common racial or ethnic groups” (Data USA). Sadly, no updated statistics have been done for the religion demographics for the town, though it would be very helpful to see how many people, and specifically who in the community, are attending churches in the area.

Screenshot from Google Street View of a Parish down the road from Bible Depot.

“By the end of the seventeenth century, the bookshop was a fixture in colonial social, commercial and religious life” (Tebbel, 5). Looking at John Tebbel’s “A Brief History of American Bookselling”, the view of bookstores as a community meeting spot is discussed at length. Tebbel uses the example of women going to bookstores to talk while they drank coffee and tea, an addition added by bookstores for the attraction of customers to their business. Using this method gains more customers and another avenue of revenue. This way of using another marketing strategy appeals to a new community around the building and the people who run it. Bible Depot, while it does not have a Starbucks inside, builds a community out of the local population through its religious nature and the nature of the people it serves.

On the same level as this, Tim Cresswell in “Defining Place” discusses different definitions of place. What is place? How do we define it? Looking at Bible Depot as a location can be viewed differently than the bookstore as a place. It is located in Sunbury but what is its place in that location? I say it is the center point for a community. That is how I view this place, this bookstore that is nestled in the vicinity of 12 churches. These churches as well are places tied to Bible Depot loosely but the connections are stark when seen.

Growing up, I could not see the community that churches gave me. Looking back now, I can see what I was involved in, the people that helped my mother and father, the people who took care of me, but most importantly, the way the people took care of the community around me. After looking at the neighborhood surrounding Bible Depot, it would seem that they may just be the center point for Christian churches in Sunbury.

 

Sources:

“Sunbury, PA.” Data USA, 2016, datausa.io/profile/geo/sunbury-pa/#demographics.

Cresswell, Tim. Place: a Short Introduction. Blackwell Pub., 2009.

Tebbel, John. A Brief History of American Bookselling. Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Company., 1975

bibledepotsunbury.com

24 PA-147, Sunbury, PA, Google Street View, Jully 2016

 

Map:

Bible Depot – Place and People, Sunbury, PA. Google Maps, 2019.

 

Photos:

Photos taken by Brianna Simmons