Remembering Heer's ...

• Working at Schiff’s Shoe Store just west of Heer’s on College Street summers while in high school and going to the mezzanine Gravel Bar (above) almost every day for lunch. A complete lunch was less than fifty cents and I always left a nickel tip. (Schiff’s Shoe Store is now home to Springfield Business Journal.)

• Going to Heer’s at Christmas time, as a child, and visiting the toy department on, I think, the fifth floor. At the time my family lived about fifty miles south of Springfield in Stone County and this was the “BIG” event of the year. We couldn’t afford to buy much, but the visit to the store was a fantasy come true and present enough.

• Visiting Heer’s as a teenager and exploring the store. It was there I formed the dreams that would later lead me to a long career in retail management. The Heer’s of those days has always been my measuring rod for what a department store should be … even as I have had the privilege of visiting many of the world’s leading department stores.

Marjorie R. Compton remembers …

• Taking our young granddaughter up on the mezzanine for delicious doughnuts. She loved looking over the railing down to the first floor.

• Having a bridal shower luncheon for my girlfriend in the Garden Room in 1951. We had beautifully prepared tuna sandwiches for 50 cents each, which included the cost of the room.

• Buying my wedding veil in 1951 (above), which was worn by my daughter in 1973 and my granddaughter in 1999.

• Shopping for my elderly mother who could tell me exactly where in the store I could find the items she wanted.

• Growing up in Springfield where Heer’s was “the store” for the first 22 years of my life.

• Moving back to Springfield in time to see the sad final day at Heer’s. I bought an artificial poinsettia plant which I still use every Christmas.

Dannette Libbee remembers …

Growing up in Springfield, Heer’s was a big part of my childhood and teenage years:

• A place to see and be seen on Saturday.

• A place to see the animated windows at Christmas.

• A place to get those “certain” white bobby socks that “slouched” just right.

• A place to get the white gloves for the Highlander Drum Corps.

• The first place that I remember having to pay to use the toilet!

Rough day at the office

Bent Agee recalls some anecdotes from his 41 years as a Heer’s employee and 59 years downtown:

• “The scariest day of my life was when they called me in the office and told me one of our workers had fallen down the elevator shaft,” Agee said. “I ran all the way down (from the seventh floor). Fortunately, we had so much trash in that pit, it didn’t hurt him. He came out OK.”

• “One day they called me down to the second floor, ladies wear department, and said there was a naked woman down there. And I got down and it wasn’t a woman,” Agee said. In fact it was a scantily clad gay man whom Agee ejected from the store.

• However, reports of wandering nudes were not exclusive to Heer’s. “I got a call one time that there was a naked man in (my parking) garage Well, I get over there, and sure enough, there is. And they’ve called the police, and he’s sitting there polishing his shoes,” Agee said.

In fact, the man had just stolen a pair of trousers from Heer’s and was getting ready to change into them when he was caught. The man sat there, naked, until the police arrived, “So I had to hold everybody out until we got him out of there before they could go home,” Agee said with a laugh.[[In-content Ad]]