By Roger Eaton, grandson*
*Relation to Andy and/or Flora Lehr
You never know when opportunity will come a knock’n. I was fourteen when Shirley and Louise Burch visited my parents. Shirley was a big man who smoked cigars. He delivered Bond bread to my dad’s grocery stores and had a rough voice. Sometimes he called my dad, Chief. He was a Chief Petty Office in the Navy during World War II. Shirley was also a WW II vet.
His wife, Louise was a personable lady who owned and operated a dress store on Main Street in El Dorado, Kansas. She was one of my mother’s many friends. It wasn’t unusual to have visitors, but this time seemed different. They left the house and probably went to have dinner.
My folks never talked business around us. A day or two after the Burch visit, they explained that Louise had been diagnosed with cancer. She was terminal and wanted my mother to take over her dress shop. Normally, we learned of business decisions after they had been implemented. Purchasing the dress store filled my mother with a mix of emotions; morning the pending loss of a friend, excitement of operating a business, keeping the family in order, etc. The purchase date was July 1st, 1973.
A dominating characteristic in my parent’s business philosophy was, when they made a business decision, they took action. In the blink of an eye, my mother was in the garment business. It was a successful business with a competent staff. The transition from the Burchs’ was comfortable. This was her operation, my dad was supportive, but had his own business concerns. Family history records indicate that she worked in the lingerie department of JC Pennys, in 1942 and 1943 – at the age of 19. She loved the business. Her customers were her friends.
She especially liked going to market. My folks traveled to Dallas and Kansas City for market. I went to the Kansas City market, one season. My motive was to go to an (high-performance) auto parts store in Kansas City while my mother was at market. The market was in the downtown airport. The corridors were lined with garment vendors.
Occasionally, she participated in local fashion shows. My sisters and sisters-in-law served as the models. The downtown merchants hosted various events to attract and entertain customers.
During my youth, I always had a steady income from working at the family businesses. The dress shop was no exception. I was in the ninth grade when I started helping at the dress shop. I swept the floors and emptied the trash cans several times per week. I liked that task more than the others. At Christmas time, I wrapped boxes and their lids. This provided pre-wrapped boxes for the sales ladies. The sales ladies could just grab a pre-wrapped box and lid at the point of sale and eliminated customers waiting for gift wrapping.
On June 16th, 1976, my brother Jim, his son, Jamie and I returned from a trip to Texas. Jim had a job interview in San Antonio. Upon our arrival in El Dorado, we stopped at the dress shop. While there, a hardware store was beginning to burn. It was a few doors from the dress shop. We were all a little numb from the drive. This scene seemed surreal, but we gained our wits and proceeded into action. There were no mobile phones. As I recall it was just around closing time for the shop – around 5:00 in the afternoon. Jim went into the store and retrieved items from the safe. I remained in the car with Jamie. He was about five years old. I was seventeen.
The fire fighters were hesitant to enter the hardware store. Their inventory included ammunition. The delay was probably a contributing factor of the fire spreading to adjacent buildings. We watched in amazement as the fire spread. It didn’t spread to the dress shop, but it suffered smoke damage.
The business was well insured. That included business interruption insurance. After the recovery, the business survived and actually came through quite well – including the employees.
Another one of my parents favorite part of operating a business is preparing the weekly ad for the local newspaper. It took them awhile to settle on a name for the store. They settled on Eaton’s – The Style Shop.
My parents navigated the business world like Tarzan swinging through the jungle, from vine to vine. While my mother operated the dress store, my dad had been dipping his toes in the Sonic restaurant pond. He acquired interest in a couple Sonic restaurants. One was in Wichita Falls, Texas and the other was in Maryville, Missouri. He partnered with Harry Smith who had delivered Wonder bread to his grocery stores. That led to a partnership to establish Plano Fried Chicken in Enid, Oklahoma.
Glenda Shain, a friend of my mother, became an employee of the dress shop. She expressed an interest in acquiring the shop. With the Plano Fried Chicken business launching, my parents decided to sell the dress shop and focus on the business in Enid, Oklahoma. Shortly after my sister, Maggie, and I graduated from high school, my mother joined my dad in Enid. Consistent with their normal practice, I had no prior knowledge of their plans to sell the dress shop and for my mother to join my dad in Enid. After work one day, I arrived to an empty house. They were on to their next venture.
