Margaret “Rocky” Best, a Point Loma resident and proprietor of Rocky’s Antiques, Books and Collectibles ” a longtime business on Park Boulevard ” passed away at her home on April 3, 2008, after a short battle with throat cancer.
She was 74.
Rocky was attended by her husband, Charles Best, and San Diego Hospice members Jarrod Trull, Janine Siegel and Anne Swift.
Rocky was not only a resident of the Point Loma community for the last 22 years and deeply involved with her antiques business in University Heights but also had strong ties to the La Jolla area.
Rocky was born in Newport, R.I., to Margaret and James Smith. Her father, a graduate of the Naval Academy and a Marine Corps general, served in the Pacific theater with the 1st Marine Division and worked closely with units of the Navajo Code Talkers at Camp Elliott and in the South Pacific.
Rocky attended Oceanside High School, where she was an honors student and cheerleader. She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C. with the class of 1952. At Wilson, Rocky was president of Omega Phi Delta Sorority and part of the court of the May Queen.
Rocky attended the University of Maryland, College Park, where she pledged Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and was one of 20 or so candidates for the 1952 Homecoming Queen when Maryland played Louisiana State University.
That fall she met Stewart “Stu” Brown, a graduate of UC Berkeley who was employed as an investment counselor in Washington D.C. After a whirlwind courtship, the two were married in Newport, R.I., and returned to La Jolla, where Stu was employed as a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch. Rocky’s aunt, Helen Holt, helped found the La Jolla Athenaeum in 1957. In La Jolla, Rocky pursued a number of endeavors, including working as a shop girl at Saks Fifth Avenue and Adelaide’s Flower Shop. She was especially active with the local bookselling community, then centered around Larry and Gerry McGilvery and with Barbara Cole’s bookshop.
Rocky was also very active with the Balmer School in the early 1950s, when the kindergarten-through-fifth-grade classes were held in the old John Cole’s Bookshop adjacent to the La Jolla Art Museum. This would eventually become La Jolla Country Day.
Rocky’s son, Christopher Perry Brown, was born Jan. 13, 1956.
After living in the then-deserted Sorrento Valley, Rocky and Chris moved to a home at the beach in Del Mar. During the winter, she and Chris turned their home into a day-care center, catering to Del Mar and UCSD’s working mothers. Summers were spent in Julian, where Rocky became a founding member of the then-secret Julian Botanical Society, an early local endeavor to genetically improve the natural resistance of native plants, and joined the Antique Bottle Club.
In the early 1980s, Rocky established Rocky’s Antiques, Books and Collectibles in Burlingame, now part of the regentrified South Park. The store became a cynosure for local poets, books scouts, antique buffs and interior decorators. In 1992, she relocated to University Heights, where, with partner Marilyn Lee, she opened an antique mall on Park Boulevard right under the University Heights sign.
Along the way, she developed a proficiency in the identification of glassware and ceramics. Everyone remembers her for her compassion, common sense and general cheerfulness. She was one of the pioneers in both the revitalization of South Park and University Heights.
She is survived by her husband of 22 years, Charles Best, who runs a rare-book business from the couple’s home on Rosecrans Street.
Rocky is also survived by her son, Chris; daughter-in-law Arlene; grandchildren, Jeremy, Levi, and Erin Tyler; sister, Sandy Thorpe of San Diego; and brothers, Pebble Smith of Willow Creek and Brick Smith of Tennessee.
Donations may be made in her name to San Diego Hospice, Friends of the Hervey/Point Loma Branch Library or the La Playa Trail Association.
Private memorial services were planned.
