PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY CINDY ANDERSON CRAFT
The Bry’s glove department around 1910. The writer's grandmother, Savannah Ora, is at left, in the white blouse with the dark tie.
In May, I wrote about Bry's Department Store, one of the most impressive — if you ask me — retail establishments in the history of Memphis.
I say this because of the astonishing variety of goods they offered. You'd find the same items — mostly clothing and accessories, maybe small furniture pieces — that you'd purchase at Goldsmith's, or Lowenstein's, or John Gerber. But then you'd also be able to purchase sporting goods, auto parts, and even airplanes.
At some point in my rambling account of Bry's I mentioned that it also had the “South’s Largest and Most Complete Optical Department,” which provided “Comfort-Frame” eyeglasses ($4.85), the Winner Frame (“strong, attractive, and becoming”) for $3.85, and “the finest double-vision lenses ever made, starting at $6.50.”
That caught the eye of one of our readers, Cindy Anderson Craft of Memphis, who wrote to tell me this:
"You mentioned in your article about Bry's Department Store that it had an optical department. While cleaning out my in-laws' house after they recently moved to a retirement home, I found this case with some antique glasses. My 94-year-old mother-in-law says that she bought them at an antique store."
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY CINDY ANDERSON CRAFT
Those are the eyeglasses, complete with the original case, that you see here. At the time, a Dr. D.H. Klein was in charge of the optical department.
But I was particularly intrigued by the old photograph (above) Cindy also shared, which shows her grandmother working at the Bry's glove department in the early 1900s. What a great image!
Now, some years ago, I wrote about an upscale women's store here, Helen of Memphis. It too had a separate glove department, and I remember being astonished at the colors, patterns, materials and other features of gloves they offered. What's more, they advertised custom fitting — of gloves — and I think that must have been true of Bry's as well. Just look at that row of stools in front of the counter, where customers would rest while trying to select the gloves they wanted, and perhaps be custom-fitted for a pair.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY CINDY ANDERSON CRAFT
At first I was puzzled by what seemed to be some sort of scientific or medical device in the photo — the oval-shaped thing sitting on the counter to the right. After a while, enough of my brain cells sparked to make me realize it was simply a large mirror, tilted up to show a portion of the ceiling. I suppose if you're having your gloved custom-fitted, you needed a large mirror to see how you looked in them.
Cindy provided this background about the photo: "My paternal grandmother (Savannah Ora Hill Anderson 1880-1959) worked in the ladies glove department at Bry's around 1910. She is the woman in the middle wearing the white blouse and necktie. I believe Bry's was the first Memphis department store to employ women as sales clerks."
When I asked her for permission to share these images, she not only gave me that permission, but she provided more information about her grandmother, which I have slightly edited:
"My grandmother Savannah Ora Anderson was quite proud of her time working at Bry's. She was born in 1880 in Friendship, TN. Her mother died in 1896, and her father remarried in 1899. This woman was the stereotypical mean stepmother, complete with two daughters of her own. We don't know the year my grandmother moved to Memphis to work at Bry's, and we don't know how long she worked there. The family story is that the stepmother did not like the fact that Savannah moved to Memphis and found success at her job. Some years later Savannah was called back home to Friendship to care for her ailing father who died in early 1912. She married my grandfather in late 1912 and had four children. The family moved to Memphis in 1921 and settled in South Memphis. She died in 1959 when I was nine years old."
Many thanks, Cindy, for the photographs and information about your family.
