May 06, 2008 08:56 am
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By Debbie Robinson
news@joplinglobe.com
MIAMI, Okla. — After providing women with dresses, jewelry and handbags for the past 43 years, Jeannie’s Dress Shop is closing its doors.
Owner Bonnie Day said no date has been set, but the doors will close after inventory is depleted.
The building at 23 S. Main St. was constructed by Day’s late husband, Howard.
“We lived in Pryor at the time, but my husband said, ‘Let’s go to Miami, where there are a lot of stores,’” she said.
A stroll through the store reveals antiques, a toy high chair and a cradle on a shelf above racks of slacks. On the counter sits a ceramic woman dressed in finery holding a 50-year-old red pincushion with straight pins.
Through the years, Day said, five family members have owned area clothing shops. After Jeannie’s closes, a nephew’s shop will be the lone survivor.
Jeannie’s Dress Shop had an unusual opening.
It was during the annual Sidewalk Days in downtown Miami, and Day and her husband were stocking inventory.
“I’ll never forget. I was folding sweaters back there, and people starting coming in wanting to buy,” Day said. “We didn’t have our cash register yet, so we made change from a box.”
Gunnysack dresses made of burlap or feed sacks were popular, as were full-skirt dresses, she said.
The shop is named after Day’s daughter, Jeannie Mackey, who also works in the store.
Prom dresses have remained one of the popular items over the years. Dresses have been a mainstay of the store, and customers are finding it difficult to find them anymore, Day said.
“When I first went into business, everybody wore dresses,” she said.
The shop entered the technology age in 1998 with the purchase of a computer, but Day still keeps a notebook that contains handwritten notes with customers’ names, phone numbers and addresses.
Day laughed when asked her age, saying she doesn’t reveal that.
Mary Rodman, 80, of Miami, is a longtime customer who cited the personal attention from shopkeepers as part of the store’s charm.
“I found Jeannie’s to be a most wonderful store,” Rodman said. “I had their undivided attention when I came in.”
Rodman said the employees could look at her and know what size she wore and what she needed.
“I’m all fixed up when I go out of there,” she said. “I always felt like I was the only one in the store.”
Many customers, Day said, would call her and tell her about an event they would be attending. When the customer arrived, the personnel at the store would have the clothes selected.
“I didn’t know people appreciated us so much,” Day said.
Customers shopping today will find the same two dressing rooms with blue fabric doors for privacy, and a metal ice cream parlor chair where husbands have been known to wait for their wives.
The shop’s back storage room contains antique sewing machines, including a tiny salesman’s sample of a treadle machine that still works. A miniature brocade shoe sits among glitter jewelry and bags.
Wynona Doty, of Miami, is a customer who was a store clerk about two decades ago.
“They’ve always carried the best brands,” she said.
Doty said she has been in a few times since Day announced the closing.
“It brought tears to my eyes,” she said. “I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do now. There’s no place left in Miami.”
She said she bought her daughter six or seven formals at the shop over the years.
“It was always so much fun,” she said. “You can go in there and match everything up.”
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