End of an era: Madison Church Supply store to close after 59 years

At Madison Church Supply, the Friar Tuck line of clergy shirts is sold out and the weatherproof Jesus statues are half off.

The store, Madison’s first religious bookstore when it opened in 1953, will close next Thursday. Everything must go.

For pastors and church secretaries, it’s the end of a convenient era in which advent candles and communion wafers were close at hand and you could buy an actual crown of thorns just down the street.

“I’m not at all happy about this,” said the Rev. Paul Anderson, pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Marshall, who dropped by the store Wednesday to pick up a box of Spanish-language baptism certificates.

Owner Bob Hetico, 55, said the store began losing money last year. The recession slashed church budgets, and more people are ordering books and Bibles off the Internet. He’s not bitter.

“How could I be? I’ve been so blessed with this store,” he said. “My customers have become my friends. I’ve shared in their joys and their sorrows, and they’ve shared in mine.”

Hetico bought the store with his wife, Susan, from founder Harold Anderson in 1988. The store was on West Dayton Street until 1992, when the couple moved it to 820 S. Park St.

The ecumenical store stocked an unparalleled selection of Catholic Bibles and source materials in addition to Protestant items. It was the go-to place for the kinds of supplies churches need every week — candles, bulletins, plastic communion cups.

“Some of those more specific church supply items is where they really filled a niche in the community,” said Joshua Long, general manager of Family Christian Store, near East Towne Mall.

Long’s store, part of a national chain, will be the only religious bookstore left in Madison. There were six when Hetico bought Madison Church Supply, he said.

In recent years, Family Christian Store has focused more on gifts than books, and its selection of Catholic items is not as deep as Madison Church Supply’s, Long said.

The Rev. Patrick Norris, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Madison, isn’t sure how he’ll proceed without the store. “You can go on the Internet or drive to Milwaukee, but what do you do when you need that one small thing, like the first communion card?”

If Hetico didn’t have an item in stock, he’d know where to get it, said the Rev. Brent Campbell, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Madison. “What we’re losing is the personal touch.”

The kind words are appreciated but bittersweet, Hetico said. “I had a woman the other day break down in tears. It’s gratifying, but heartbreaking, too.”

Hetico said it’s too soon to know what will happen to the Park Street building, which he owns. He has not had time to find a tenant or put it up for sale.

Meanwhile, he’s been hired as national sales manager for InterVarsity Press, a Christian publishing company in suburban Chicago. The job will keep him close to his first love.

“I’m a bookseller at heart,” he said.