Patricia Cody, who with her husband Fred co-founded Cody's Books in Berkeley in 1956, died Thursday at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland. She was 87.

The Codys settled in Berkeley after meeting at Columbia University, following a brief period in London where Fred was in graduate school. They founded the bookstore after Fred declined to swear an oath against communism, thereby destroying all hope of an academic career at the time. The place became a hub for Bay Area literati, and the Codys were early supporters of Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Pat Cody ran the bookstore from a financial and organizational standpoint. As their daughter, Cecilia Cody remembers, ""My father would be out having lunch with publishers, and she'd be upstairs in the office with a hot plate and Campbell's soup at her desk. He'd order all these expensive art prints and calendars from Germany, and then she'd cut the orders in half."

The Codys sold the bookstore in 1977, and it ultimately closed in 2008. See Mrs. Cody's full obituary over at the Chron.