The heart of the story

Growing up, Linda Kass knew she was a first-generation American. But like most kids, she didn’t think too much about her parents’ prior lives. They were simply Mom and Dad.

As Kass entered adulthood and asked more questions, a fuller picture of Aurelia “Rela” Rosaminer Stern and Ernest “Ernie” Stern ’47 began to emerge, complete with dramatic accounts of resilience and survival. As a Jewish girl growing up in Eastern Poland, Rela and her family survived the Holocaust thanks to a Catholic neighbor who built a bunker for them under his barn. After World War II, Rela spent two years studying medicine in Vienna and then immigrated to the United States, eventually arriving in Columbus, Ohio, to begin graduate studies in bacteriology at Ohio State.

Ernie grew up in Vienna, but in 1938, after the Nazis took control of Austria, a total stranger in the United States signed an affidavit of support so that he and his family could escape persecution. At 15, Ernie went to Central High School in Columbus and after graduation enrolled at Ohio State, but following his junior year, in 1943, he joined the Army. Thanks to his understanding of German language and culture, he was trained in military intelligence alongside other young Jewish immigrants at Camp Ritchie in Maryland and went on to conduct top-secret work in the translation and analysis of captured German papers. After the war, he returned to Ohio State and graduated with a business degree.

Kass learned many of these astonishing details in the early 1980s, when she decided to interview both of her parents. She recorded the audio onto a cassette, carefully transcribed the conversations using an IBM Selectric typewriter and put the pages of her family’s history in a drawer.

And there they sat for nearly three decades.

It wasn’t until her parents’ 60th wedding anniversary in 2008 that Kass, using the skills acquired from years of freelance writing and a 1978 master’s degree in journalism from Ohio State, began to stitch the raw material into a narrative as a gift to her parents. Then, with encouragement from Ohio State Distinguished Professor of English and celebrated novelist Lee Martin, Kass used her mother’s story as the framework for her first novel, Tasa’s Song (2016), followed by another book of historical fiction inspired by her father’s life, A Ritchie Boy (2020).

Kass’ experiences in the world of publishing, including Bessie (2023) and a forthcoming novel set in an Ohio high school, give her a full perspective as the proprietor of Gramercy Books, a beloved bookshop on Main Street in the suburban enclave of Bexley, just east of Columbus.

“One of the great things about Linda is that she’s not just a bookstore owner,” says acclaimed author and poet Maggie Smith ’03 MFA, who lives in Bexley. “I think she does such a good job in part because she’s also a writer. She has a different appreciation for the importance of both customers and writers having a good experience at a bookstore.”

Gramercy’s modest size belies its national reputation, thanks in no small part to the many author events Kass organizes, averaging more than a program per week. Gramercy, which is about to enter its 10th year in business, is at the forefront of a vibrant and still-growing independent bookstore scene in Central Ohio, which now boasts more than a dozen brick and mortar shops.

All the while, Kass, 71, has donated her time and resources to countless organizations, including fundraising for Pelotonia and serving on boards for the Bexley Education Foundation and Columbus Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Ohio State Board of Trustees and Foundation.

And yet these accomplishments were never lifelong goals for Kass. “I didn’t plan to be a novelist. I didn’t plan to be a bookstore owner,” Kass says. “The things that make me curious to know more—that’s where I go. I’m a learner at heart.”

Bexley is Kass’ home and birthplace, though in elementary school, her family moved farther south to Columbus’ Berwick neighborhood. She attended Eastmoor High School (now Eastmoor Academy) and was a cheerleader during football games that featured classmate and future legend Archie Griffin ’76.

For college, Kass started at Indiana University studying health sciences, then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, graduating as a physical therapist. After internships in New York City and Washington, D.C., Kass came back to Columbus to work in heavy rehab at Ohio State’s Dodd Hall Rehabilitation Hospital. The job proved to be physically and mentally grueling.

“I’m a small person, and I’m working in this heavy rehab where most of the people coming in are quadriplegics or stroke victims,” Kass says. “I would come home, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about my patients. It was very hard.”

Kass began to wonder if she should refocus her interest in medicine. While at Penn, she had worked with the Annenberg School for Communication, writing well-received papers with medical themes. That experience prompted Kass to pursue a graduate degree in journalism at Ohio State, a university with meaningful family ties.

“My father graduated from Ohio State on the GI Bill, and I can recall going to football games with my dad as young as 6 years old,” Kass says. “It’s a very important institution not just in our Central Ohio community, but throughout our state.”

Kass enjoyed the journalism program, and she found she had a knack for telling stories, particularly those with a medical bent. While pursuing her graduate degree, she began writing features for Columbus Monthly magazine, including hard-hitting investigations into local hospitals.

Kass also got married in the late ’70s, and when her then-husband’s job took them to Detroit, she turned freelance journalism into a career, writing for Time magazine, the Detroit Free Press and other outlets while teaching magazine writing at Wayne State University. The couple then moved to New York City, where Kass worked in public affairs for an early cable TV company.

Some time after Kass’ first marriage ended, she moved back to Columbus and married Frank Kass ’65, a fellow Buckeye and family friend since childhood. Linda’s father worked for Frank’s father, Leo Eiferman, at Continental Office Supply after World War II, but when Eiferman died of a heart attack at a New Year’s Eve party in 1950, Stern not only became business partners with Frank’s mother, he also became a steady presence in Frank’s life.

“Linda’s father was very important to me,” says Frank, a founding partner of Continental Real Estate Cos. “He was like my father figure at the time. He would build a train set with me and take me to events. I was very close with him my whole life. He was a great role model.”

Linda and Frank married in 1987. Much has changed since those early days, but Frank says that in many ways, Linda remains the same: “smart, beautiful, driven.”

Frank brought two kids to the marriage, Jonathan and David, and Linda one young son, Matt. Early in the marriage, the couple had a daughter, Jessica. Tragically, she developed brain cancer and died in November 1990, before the age of 2.

“It was pretty awful,” Linda says. “I kept myself really, really busy. I did a lot of work in the community. I got involved in my son’s Montessori school. But it was a very tough time. … I never really talked about Jessica.”

Linda and Frank soon were blessed with another daughter, Alex, making life even busier. And Linda’s work at the Columbus Montessori Education Center also opened more doors for civic involvement. “The mayor of Bexley saw my interest in education, and he told me I should run for the school board in Bexley. So I did,” she says. “I was on Capital University’s board for a while, and then the Ohio State Board of Trustees. Over a couple of decades, I was really a public servant, raising a family and doing all this community service.”

Linda’s nine-year term on Ohio State’s Board of Trustees left her with “an understanding of the breadth and depth and complexity of The Ohio State University,” she says. “I was always so impressed with the students and the caliber of the faculty.”

Frank, a successful Columbus developer and civic leader, traces much of his wife’s dedication to the community back to her father, Ernie. “He was in every organization known to mankind,” Frank says, adding an important distinction. “He was not involved in community service. He was committed to it. This is the parable I always use: In a breakfast of bacon and eggs, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.”

Linda similarly commits herself wholeheartedly to causes, whether it’s serving on the boards of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra or the United Way of Central Ohio. Lisa Hinson ’89, founder and CEO of Hinson Ltd. Public Relations, served on the CSO board with Linda and currently serves alongside her on the Ohio State Foundation Board.

“What differentiates Linda, and what makes everyone around her better, is that she is fully committed to whatever she’s in,” Hinson says. “She’s thoughtful. Everything she undertakes is done with care, and she takes it seriously. Those of us watching the way she approaches community work go, ‘OK, she’s the model for how you can help move an institution forward.’”

“She’s a perfectionist,” Frank says. “She spends a lot of time getting it right.”

For years, Linda focused much of her community efforts on education, but she hadn’t found a way to honor the memory of Jessica with her service. “I kept avoiding doing anything with cancer,” she says.

Then Pelotonia came along.

Back in 2008, before the very first ride, Pelotonia’s then-CEO Tom Lennox reached out to Linda, telling her about the goal of organizing an annual bike ride in which every dollar raised would go toward one mission: ending cancer.

Linda signed up for the very first Pelotonia and found that cycling in the annual event allowed her to channel her grief into something productive and genuinely life-changing. Since that first ride, Kass has raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars for cancer research. She dedicates her annual rides to the memory of Jessica and other loved ones whose lives were cut short by cancer.

Walking into Gramercy Books on Main Street in downtown Bexley, you might first be greeted by Wally, Kass’ friendly labradoodle (and a very good boy). The shop is beautiful and well-appointed, a contrast of dark wood and white trim with a whimsical children’s section and an extensive fiction and literature section.

Gramercy is much like Kass herself: urban and sophisticated while still being warm and approachable. A reading area features chairs Kass has owned for 40 years. A table in front of the bestseller shelves used to occupy Kass’ breakfast room. Her sister’s old Underwood typewriter sits on one of the shelves. “I wanted it to feel homey,” Kass says.

People sometimes ask how Gramercy and other indie booksellers can compete with online retailers like Amazon, but Kass doesn’t put them in the same category. “Amazon is a completely different business than ours. It’s a transactional business. We’re an experiential business,” she says. “You’re coming in, touching books, talking to booksellers, comparing things, reading. It’s right in front of you—it’s physical.”

Kass has always loved visiting bookstores in other cities. She and Frank would often frequent a shop called Sundog Books while spending time in the town of Seaside, Florida. Over the years, Linda got to know the owners and would pepper them with questions about the ins and outs of running a bookstore.

A little over 10 years ago, Frank fortuitously had the opportunity to develop Gramercy’s current site at the same time that he and Linda were looking to downsize. They razed the previous building and built condos for themselves and a few of their friends. When it came time to decide on the type of retail to put on the first floor, Linda seized the opportunity to launch Gramercy, which shares a doorway with adjacent retailer Kittie’s Cakes.

Poet Smith can’t imagine Bexley without Gramercy now. She remembers pushing her son there in a stroller. And still today, Gramercy gift cards remain a go-to request for her kids. The staff knows what she likes and what her kids like and sometimes emails her with personal recommendations.

“Buying a book from Amazon doesn’t improve your life. You get a book, and it’s cheap, but that’s it,” Smith says. “Nothing gives a neighborhood a glow-up like an independent bookstore. It becomes one of those third spaces where you end up running into like-minded people and having conversations—sometimes about stuff completely other than literature.”

Gramercy’s wooden bookshelves are on wheels so staff can roll them to the side and maximize space for author events. With stackable chairs in the closets, the shop can seat 64 people. Those events, which feature both local and national authors, are crucial to Gramercy’s business and Kass’ vision for a bookstore that creates literary connections. “I’m all about community, so having events and bringing community together, that was intentional from the very beginning,” Kass says.

When an author’s audience is too big for Gramercy, Kass holds events at larger spaces in Bexley—the Drexel Theatre, Bexley Public Library, Bexley High School—and throughout Columbus. Regardless of the venue, however, she never outsources the details. “I’m always at every event. I think I’ve missed two out of 700 events. I curate them. I want to be here for them,” she says. “I’ve been in the situation where someone booked me [as an author], and they didn’t show up. It feels bad.”

During a recent event at the Drexel Theatre featuring Laurie Gwen Shapiro, author of The Aviator and the Showman, Kass quietly manages the entire event with ease, chatting with guests beforehand, introducing the authors, taking photos in the back and slowly making her way toward the front when the Q&A portion approaches the one-hour mark. “I’m pretty organized,” she says.

This is an understatement. “She creates the most detailed run-of-show I have ever received from an independent bookshop owner in my life,” says Smith, who always partners with Gramercy on release events for her books. “She’s just incredibly on top of every last detail.”

That eye for detail has paid off. Book publicists now look to Kass when they’re planning national author tours. She diligently keeps up with upcoming releases and submits proposals for events with authors whose books would appeal to the Central Ohio  community. “She competes with other stores around the country,” Frank says. “She’s very diligent in doing that. She’s really very diligent about everything.”

Kass has always loved music, and she often partners with local musicians and venues, pairing music-related books with live performances. Alec Wightman ’75 JD, a friend and retired attorney who has booked local shows for touring songwriters for decades, usually conducts the author interviews when music is involved. “Linda brings a seriousness and an intensity to the events,” Wightman says. “It’s everything from the run-of-show to making sure the experience for the author, as well as the audience, is first-rate. Nothing is left to chance.”

Even more than Kass’ business acumen, Wightman—who also serves with her on the Ohio State Foundation Board—values her big heart and sympathetic ear. A few years ago, Wightman lost a daughter unexpectedly, and Kass was there to listen and offer support.

“She advised me at a point in time, relatively early in that grieving process, to make sure you find joy in life,” Wightman says. “The other stuff is not going to go away. But make sure, independent of that, that you find joy. … She has been very helpful in her counsel.”

“It’s hard when people are suffering,” Kass says, “and there is comfort when there’s a friend who really understands.”

While running the bookstore and spending time with her blended family, including six grandchildren who range in age from 1 to 25, Kass continues to find time to write historical fiction. Bessie, which she published in 2023, takes its inspiration from the early life of Bess Myerson, who grew up in the Bronx and became the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America title.

Still a journalist at heart, Kass is a stickler for historic authenticity, thoroughly researching all of her books. And she doesn’t shy away from difficult topics. “Her characters are fully formed because they are connected so well to their time period, their settings and to all the cultural things that are happening around them,” says Distinguished Professor Martin, now her friend and writing mentor. “Her novels take on some really tough questions concerning antisemitism and other social ills, but she’s never didactic. She’s always addressing these concerns through the stories themselves and the people involved in them.”

Aspects of Kass herself show up in her work. The connections to her mother and father are strong throughout Tasa’s Song and A Ritchie Boy, of course. But there are other nods to Kass’ life, too. In Bessie, the memory of a child who died haunts the main character’s family. “We fiction writers like to believe that we’re hidden in the fiction that we write, but we never really are,” Martin says. “The more you know about the writer, the more you’re able to see exactly where they are in the work.”

Kass’ next book, World News from Waverley High, is perhaps her most autobiographical yet. While the novel’s narrator is not Kass, the book, due for release in September 2026, takes place at an integrated Ohio high school during the 1969–70 school year—the same politically and culturally turbulent era that Kass experienced at Eastmoor. [See story on page 29.]

No matter how much Kass grounds a novel in reality, she always leaves space for her characters to develop. “Two things are important for any writer: curiosity and openness,” Martin says. “We can’t predetermine our characters’ stories or what we think about them or feel for them. We have to let the writing itself bring that to the surface. And the fact that she’s so open makes that highly possible when you read a Linda Kass novel. She’s letting the people’s stories lead her wherever they want to go.”

That’s what Kass has done in her own life, as well. Her curiosity continues to lead her to places of inspiration and education. Some days, it’s a bookstore. Other days, it’s the board room of a nonprofit. Sometimes, it’s her home office, in quiet pursuit of the perfect word. “She’s a community builder across whatever she’s focused on, whether it’s as a business owner or a board member,” Hinson says. “Everybody who knows her admires her.”