The Gibson Dress Shop

The Gibson Dress Shop was my father's way of owning another business and providing an interesting job for my sister, Marion. My father was Manager of the main Gardner-White Furniture Store in Detroit and as he traveled to and from work he passed a small retail area with a For Lease sign on the window of one of the shops.  My father liked owning a business even though, sadly enough, his own furniture store had gone bankrupt during the Depression years.  So my father signed the lease for the retail store. 

The previous occupants had cleaned and emptied the space as my father had asked so all that was left was to build two dressing rooms.  My mother was tapped to make curtains for the dressing rooms and she came with a tape measure to determine the yardage of the material she would need - my father had chosen burlap in two different colors.  She was not happy about this new role she had been given! My darling mother sewed and and hemmed the burlap dressing room curtains.  It was a tedious job, but when they were hung at the Gibson Dress Shop they were absolutely beautiful!

The Gibson Dress Shop sign was designed by my father with the approval of Marion. Visiting wholesale houses in Detroit was next, with Marion and my mother and father checking out the inventory, determining which sizes and types of dresses - mostly dresses for work and evening - and which labels to carry.  They also picked out costume jewelry, being very selective because so much of the costume jewelry had little or no appeal to my sister and mother. Then the mirrors were hung and all that was left was the delivery of the orders and the placement of the articles in the glass counters.  

The Opening Day was advertised in the neighborhood paper.  My father drove Anna MacNamera -  widow of his dear friend Frank from Furniture Store days - to the Opening and she bought Nothing!  My father raved and ranted for days afterwards.  He never got over it!

Catherine O'Malley, widow of Pat O'Malley - my father's other furniture store friend -  was also invited to the Opening of the Gibson Dress Shop.  Catherine O'Malley was the the very opposite of Anna MacNamara, so that the very idea of the Dress Shop was a delightful experience.  She loved the Pandora sweaters folded neatly in the glass counters along with many pieces of Costume Jewelry.  She tried on earrings and broaches and bracelets, looking at her image in the little mirror Marion held up for her.  She liked everything Marion showed her, finding the perfect pair of earrings that she clipped on her ears right away and then choosing a Tomato Red Pandora sweater. She was the perfect customer for Opening Day!  A small grey gift box for the sweater and then the cash register rang up the first sale of the day.  My father suggested to Marion that a small gift for Anna and Catherine in honor of The Gibson Dress Shop Opening Day would be a nice gesture so two small silk scarves, one with red dots for Catherine O'Malley and the other with small square blue blocks for Anna MacNamara were selected. 

Customers began arriving and Marion and my mother and father were busy showing and selling. Opening Day was a success and The Gibson Dress Shop continued to be a favorite retail store in the neighborhood.  It was open Monday through Saturday, with my father driving Marion to the store on his way to Gardner-White and  home to Three Mile Drive at the end of the day.    

My father, being an experienced business owner and knowledgeable about what sells and what doesn't sell, talked to my mother and Marion about taking a train to New York City to visit the wholesale area there at 34th Street and Madison Avenue, to give The Gibson Dress Shop an upscale image with better quality merchandise. And so the plan began, with my father hiring the daughter of one of the salesmen at Gardner-White to work at The Gibson Dress Shop the week Marion was traveling to New York. My father gave my sister the responsibility of choosing the things she liked without interference from him (thank goodness, she later told my mother). The shop continued to be very popular on the east side of Detroit. After five or six years, my father decided to sell The Gibson Dress Shop.  Marion was happy with the news.  Her experience selling and keeping the books for The Gibson Dress Shop had given her a valuable resume.  She applied, and was quickly hired to work, in the office of a Men's Clothing company and was eventually promoted to Office Manager.

The Gibson Dress Shop was sold to an affluent Grosse Pointe family whose daughter wanted to own a dress store. My father sold the entire inventory and the wonderfully designed sign.  He gave Marion a large bonus from the proceeds of the sale as well as a skunk fur coat which she loved,a present for working long hours at the Gibson Dress Shop.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

The 1952 Ford

The 1952 Ford Mainline was the first car your dad owned.  We were very happy with this model.  It was perfectly designed with a comfortable front seat for driver and passenger and the back seat - like the front seat - roomy enough for several children and even, later on, a little car bed.  Everything about it was designed with the family in mind. The dashboard window was called a wrap-around window, allowing the driver and front seat passenger to feel close to the road and all passing scenery.

  

We were living in Yonkers in the upstairs apartment of the owners, Mamie and Al Flage, and a window in our living room that faced 31 Old Jerome Avenue was just great for taking pictures of your dad "dusting the car" on that first day of ownership.

From Yonkers, the '52 Ford followed us to Connecticut and then to our first house in southeast Minneapolis, to Louisiana Avenue in Crystal, to York Avenue in Robbinsdale, and then to the house on Winsdale Avenue. The long brick driveway belonging to the house was the scene of the most tearful time as we watched our Ford Mainline being towed away when it was no longer driveable.  There was never a car so dear to me with its the memories of a time when we were young.

Pearl

Sunday, January 12, 2014

More Early Days

     We loved it that the house had a very large bedroom on the first floor with a picture window facing the front lawn and our street. We had a comfortable double bed and enough room for a beautiful crib with wide flat slats with very little space between each, designed to keep little hands from being caught between the slats during bedtime and pictured in The New Yorker Magazine, so we ordered the crib for Patty and Marit and Dede and Lockie and Holly and Erik and Roslyn. I just couldn't part with the crib that was so beautifully designed even when it was no longer needed. So we kept it in the garage rafters there on Zenith, finally selling my most cherished crib to a young couple who promised to repair its "loose joints."

     The story of the Youth Bed - promising parents safe sleeping when graduating from babyhood in the crib to the Youth Bed came about when Marit was born. We had moved to Yonkers, New York, living on Old Jerome Avenue in the Flages' upstairs apartment.  There was a beautiful kitchen overlooking a very lovely back yard.  Old Jerome Avenue was a short block backing up to the beautiful Van Cortlandt Park where a walk with your father, Otto Ramstad, and Patty, found a rattlesnake sleeping under a very large rock. 

Saturday, January 4, 2014

From 325 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, to 191 Frederick Street, Peekskill, New York

Dearest Beloved,

Today, Christmas Day, Wednesday, 2013, the music of Christmas playing on my radio and remembering our first Christmas so long ago. We didn't have a Christmas Tree, but Christmasy boughs displayed like pictures on the living room walls holding very small dainty ornaments, some frosty blue and others silver colored, just the right size for the boughs. We were renting a very pretty house in Peekskill, New York, furnished to rent to summer people wanting to get away from their Bronx apartment.  Everything charmingly simple and casual and with a lovely wood burning fireplace, logs for burning from a birch tree at the far end of the yard.

Back and forth between Peekskill, NY and Manhattan meant taking the train just an hour ride - the station in Peekskill was a long walk up Frederick Street to the city bus stop and a short ride to the train station - for visits with Story Parade Managing Editor, Lockie Parker, Staff Associate Jane Werner and others, delivering illustrations and new assignments.

One of the two bedrooms upstairs was converted into a very nice studio for you so art work at home was great.