CHICAGO — Word traveled fast that the owner of a nearly century-old bookstore had died.

Social media posts were made. A news article written. Emails sent.

When Rebecca George, the co-owner of a bookstore in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood, was told the owner of The Gallery Bookstore in Lakeview had died and left behind a store full of books, she mobilized Chicago’s book-loving community. After all, George estimated there were 20,000 or 30,000 books crammed inside the store, which had only ever had two owners and had been under the care of Bill Fiedler since 1989.

An “End of an Era” sale was organized for the store at 923 W. Belmont Ave., this Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., to honor Fiedler’s legacy and distribute his books and memorabilia at discounted prices to as many people as possible.

Meanwhile, Fiedler, 73, was at his Elk Grove Village home with his wife, enjoying retirement with little concern that news of his death had begun to circulate.

“People can think you’re dead all they want,” Fiedler said during a phone interview Wednesday.

Indeed, instead of resting in peace, he’s simply resting. After more than three decades of selling books — he said he made money from his first day until his last — it was time to close up shop. He was a month-to-month tenant, and his former landlord told the Tribune that Fiedler had terminated his lease this spring and sent a termination letter in the mail.

And thus, the rumor of his death was born.

“It was a bad assumption that I made,” admitted his former landlord, Kyle Glascott of Glascott & Associates.

Glascott thought Fiedler might have been in poor health and when he didn’t hear from Fiedler, he thought Fiedler might have died and that his wife had sent the termination letter.

As part of their lease agreement, Fiedler didn’t have to clear all the books out of the space when he stopped leasing it, Glascott said. So Glascott reached out to George to see if she was willing and able to help find new homes for the store’s books.

On Sunday, Volumes Bookcafe, the store where George works, posted the news about Fiedler’s alleged death on social media in one of its promotions of Saturday’s sale.

“A few weeks ago the owner and operator of Gallery Bookstore in Lakeview, William ‘Bill’ Fiedler, sadly passed away,” an Instagram post read. “We were called to help with this mission of ensuring these books aren’t just tossed away.”

Comments from mourners flooded in. Some simply posted heart emojis. Others shared fond memories of Fiedler. A few former employees weighed in, and word of Fiedler’s passing spread.

Fiedler compared himself with Ernest Hemingway, who after surviving two plane crashes in Africa in 1954 and being reported dead, had the experience of being able to read his own obituaries.

“I did my best,” Fiedler said, reflecting on his time as a bookstore owner, a career he pursued while raising two children. Fiedler was working in Detroit and didn’t have a pension when the store’s previous owner died and Fielder decided to give running the store a whirl.

Fiedler said he had no lingering regrets about his time as a bookstore owner.

A man who doesn’t use email and has never sent a text, Fiedler said false information can easily spread today because of the internet, adding that the false news of his death was a small, relatively harmless example of that.

Despite an aversion to technology, he sold books online. Affording clerks in recent years, however, was challenging because minimum wage was so high, he said.

He is worried about the reading habits of modern society and the influence of the internet and video games. Most of the people who still buy books, Fielder said, want the same books — titles like “The Catcher in the Rye” again and again.

When George learned that Fielder was still alive, she said she felt “horrible.” She volunteered her time to look after Fiedler’s collection largely because she thought Fiedler was dead. George said Glascott told her Fiedler had died.

And the store’s current state seemed like further confirmation to George that something bad had likely happened to the owner.

“(It’s) like he just got up and walked out,” George said.

Even though Fiedler said he took the best stuff from the store with him, after nearly 100 years of collecting, there will be enough gems to go around.

“Anyone who goes there on Saturday is going to find some real treasures,” said Suzanne Schmidt, a curator at Newberry Library who swung by the store on Tuesday to pick up items, mostly for the library’s genealogy and local history collections.

Knowledge that Fiedler is alive won’t affect plans to host the sale on Saturday, and the sale will still honor Fiedler’s legacy, George said.

George recommended that people come on by to check out the “weird and cool” vintage paperbacks from the 1960s and 1970s that are probably out of print. Schmidt highlighted the store’s deep local music collection and its aging maps of transit systems.

“We didn’t take very much,” Schmidt said. “It’s an overwhelming, amazing group of things in the space.”

Fiedler said his bookstore and other local ones like it that have closed are an important part of Chicago history. But his store was never famous, Fiedler said. He preferred promoting his bookstore through word of mouth rather than through the media.

Fiedler said he’s been dealing with reporters for more than three decades and never enjoyed the articles they wrote about his store.

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