‘Such a happy person.’ Beaufort librarian remembered, honored after her unexpected death
Sarah Shulin, 31, always had a book in her hand or by her side.
She was a librarian, after all, and seemed most comfortable surrounded by shelves of stories.
As soon as her rambunctious 7- and 5-year-old boys, Timothy and Felix, were tucked into bed each night, her nose would be buried in a book.
She also was a talented multi-tasker, able to both read her latest novel and pay attention to a TV show simultaneously, impressively recalling details from both if you asked her to, her husband, Thomas Shulin, recalled.
Like most book fanatics, she loved Harry Potter. But she also held Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tender is the Night” close to her heart.
She was a “super caring mom,” and the boys loved reading with her and dressing up in costumes.
“She loved them so much,” Thomas Shulin said. “The boys could never do anything wrong by her.”
He has spent a lot of time thinking about his wife and the things that made her happy — spending time with family, visiting the nearby beach, and discovering new books — since her unexpected death on Aug 9.
That day, the couple had taken the boys to the aquarium in Charleston, and they stopped at a store on the way home. Sarah had a panic attack and fainted, he said. She seemed fine when she woke up and got into the car on her own, but Shulin took her to a nearby hospital out of precaution.
“I thought everything was going to be OK,” he said.
Hours later, his wife was pronounced dead.
One doctor said a blood clot led to Sarah’s death, but according to an autopsy, there was no blood clot, and her heart was healthy, Shulin said.
The family is hoping results from a toxicology report can better explain what happened.
“She wasn’t just the wife I wanted,” Shulin said. “She was the wife I needed. I’m scared for the future now.”
He said he has found comfort in all of the messages from people telling him how much they loved Sarah, and he has appreciated the support from friends and strangers.
“It’s been insane,” he said. “I know Sarah’s a great person, but I’m so thankful that everybody else knows, too.”
Second to Sarah’s love of reading was sharing that love with others.
She had done so working in libraries since she was 16 or 17, her husband said, but when the family first moved to Port Royal from Asheville, North Carolina, a few years ago, she started working odds and ends jobs to pay the bills.
Eventually, she got her big break with a part-time job at the Beaufort County Libraries’ location in downtown Beaufort. Soon enough, she’d be promoted to be children’s programmer.
Sarah was ecstatic about the chance to work with kids in her new role, Beaufort branch manager Stacey Inman said.
“Sarah loved her job and working at the library,” Inman said. “You could tell it was her favorite place to be. She loved it and was good at it. She was such a happy person.”
The Beaufort County Library System shared a Facebook post last week about Shulin’s passing, saying “she had a genuine, kind smile for everyone and often could be heard saying, ‘This makes me so happy.’”
And because she so enjoyed sharing her love of reading with the children and teenagers who visited the library, the library system’s second post was a graphic that featured the covers of 10 of Shulin’s favorite books, all of which are in the fantasy or young adult genres.
“She was a blessing for us, and we were happy to have her for the short time we did,” Inman said. “She’ll be missed dearly here.”
