L.S. Ayres Department store closed the doors downtown in January of 1992 — over 20 years ago! May Company had purchased the chain and moved all the management, buying, and advertising departments to St. Louis (over 1,200 employees lost their jobs with that merger).
I had joined the Ayres Advertising Department in 1985. My best friend from college Miki (a Japanese girl who married a blond, blue-eyed Hoosier) had been working for first Ayr-way and then Ayres her whole career, since we graduated from Herron.
The advertising department consisted of over fifty employees from layout artists, writers, production staff, coordinators and cameraman.
This was back before computers, so all the pages of the newspaper ads and catalogues had to be hand-drawn layouts of exactly what each page should look like. This was when newspaper ads were fashion illustrations done by hand. The catalogues used photographs, but each page had to be drawn so the photographer knew how to set up the shot and what the merchandise looked like. This was very time-consuming and tedious.
We all worked very hard and under so much stress that we bonded in a way that most co-workers don’t. We were all those creative types — you know, a little quirky, a little eccentric. We had so much fun together and many of us kept in touch. Our own C.J. Woods, III (columnist with “Words from Woods”) was one of those art directors from the Ayres days. He lost his job with May Company in St. Louis when Macy’s took over just a few years ago. Luckily he moved back to Indy.
Four years ago, with the help of e-mailing, our cameraman Dana Harrison started contacting everyone he could find and we had our first Ayres Advertising reunion. Several were living in St. Louis and one art director, Chris, came in from Cleveland.
Dana being the cameraman he was, had kept every photo ever taken. We were always taking Polaroids of the merchandise to draw, so there were hundreds of funny shots of us. Dana always put together a photo calendar every year with everyone’s photo and name so we had lots to reminiscence about.
Well, we have been having a yearly reunion ever since and June 8th we had our fourth one. It seems it’s always near someone’s birthday so we celebrate that, too.
This year it was the big 80 for Norma Jean. She started at Ayres in the 50s as one of the those models who walked around the Tea Room showing off the latest fashions. She later worked in Advertising and was the best proofreader we had. Every time we published the EOM (End of the Month Sale) ad she made herself a newspaper pirate hat and wore it while she read every line and figured out if a piece of merchandise was actually 33 percent off or not. We couldn’t disturb her during this important process or she’d call you a “twit”!
Norma I’m sure knew we were having an Ayres Reunion sometime this year. The date has varied greatly, but she didn’t know when. I made up a fake invite to my kid’s big birthday party this year. One will be 40 and the other 30, but not until winter. She believed the invite, because she knows I never let a big event just slip by and it’s usually at the Benton House.
I made us all newspaper pirate hats and she was so surprised! Seldom do surprise parties ever really work. She even brought birthday presents for my kids — I told her just to hang on to them until I have their real party.
We had a big pitch in dinner and cake with Norma’s lovely face on it!
Norma and her husband Virg left on a trip to the North Pole the following Monday — I’m not kidding. Who goes to the North Pole?! They went to the Antarctic a couple of years ago and were going on the same cruise line. I can’t wait to hear the stories and see the pictures — and yes, I will write an article about it.
paula.weeklyview.com
