Lila Weller, matriarch of Salt Lake City's Weller bookstore and an employee for 70-some years, dies at 105

I got to meet Lila Weller a year and a half ago, when the family bookstore where she was the matriarch — Weller Book Works in Trolley Square — celebrated its 90th anniversary. She was 103 then, and still worked at the store, checking inventory and being wise counsel to her son, Tony, and his wife, Catherine, who run the store.

Lila first started working at the store in the 1950s, when she met Sam Weller — who took over the business from his father, Gus, when Sam returned home from serving in World War II. Lila did the bookkeeping, devised her own inventory system for the pre-computer age, and provided a level head when Sam needed one.

The pandemic forced Lila to stay home, where she was “just bored,” Catherine Weller told me last August.

On April 15, Lila Weller died at her Salt Lake City home, at age 105. Here’s what I wrote for her obituary for The Salt Lake Tribune, based on the store’s history and on my meeting her and the family in 2019.