Is there no end to the historical treasures to be found in the Lauderdale Library? Tonight, riding my tricycle through the lonely hallways of the Mansion, I crashed into a big cardboard box, and inside I discovered a nice collection of Lowen-Behold newsletters, the company publication for the old Lowenstein's Department Store chain.
And look, if I have to stop right here and explain what and where Lowenstein's was, then you are reading the wrong column. (It was one of our city's top department stores, children.)
These are from 1948 and 1949, and they are packed with wonderful old photos, news, vintage ads for products they offered in the early days, and lots of gossip about the company employees. Each newsletter, in fact, had a "reporter" who covered the events on his or her particular floor, and the titles of their columns were quaint and amusing. You had "Basement Bits," for example, "The Main Drag" (main floor, natch), "Second Glances," "Third Floor Flickers," "Fourth Floor Facts," "Jive on Five" (my personal favorite), "Snooping Around Seven," and "Behind the Eight Ball."
Were you paying attention? No news from the sixth floor, for some reason. Perhaps this is where they kept Marsha. (And if have to explain that Twilight Zone reference, then you are really reading the wrong column.
Looking over all these news items, most of them discuss sales awards, or marriages, or births — the usual stuff. Some of them come across to me as just a bit snippy. On the third floor, for instance, you have this: "And we can't forget that Mr. Gene Houseal is back from his one-week vacation. He finally got that fence built that he's been talking about for the last six months."
Gene certainly sounds like the life of the party. What will he talk about for the next six months?
Of course, the big news in the March 1949 issue was the grand opening of Lowenstein's Poplar Plaza store (scheduled for April), which was the centerpiece of our city's first shopping center development "out east." How quaint that sounds now. Highland "out east." Ha.
The $1,000,000 store would open for "public inspection" on Friday, April 1, 1949, "but no merchandise will be sold that day." Instead, shopping would actually begin on the following day, and it seems that Mrs. Wilma G. Person, "whose family have been owners of the Lowenstein's East property for many years, has requested that she be allowed to make the first purchase at our new store." I wonder if they let her do that? It kind of puts a lot of pressure on Mrs. Person, doesn't it? — having to decide just what to buy, on such a special occasion and all, and with all the other shoppers around her saying, "Hurry up!"
What's interesting, too, is the proposed "Roll of Honor," which would include the names of all Memphians who had been present at the grand opening of the main store downtown back in 1924. Where is that now, I wonder?
I'd tell you more, but now I've got some reading to do.
