A Beaufort icon passes, Lucille Lipsitz is ‘flying with the angels’

Lucille Lipsitz, a welcoming fixture at the iconic Beaufort department store for decades, died on Dec. 26 at the age of 93 from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. She was known for treating every visitor to the store with the same care and grace whether it was a star actor in town filming a movie or a young daughter getting fitted for a new pair of shoes.

Away from her time in the store, her children always came first and she had a soft spot for those down on their luck.

The well-known Bay Street businesswoman also loved to gamble and had an adventurous side. For her 84th birthday in June of 2014, Lipsitz went skydiving. After that experience, she had hoped to fly with the Blue Angels — the U.S. Navy flight squadron known for their aerial acrobatics. “So now she is flying with the angels — not the Blue Angels,” said her son, Neil Lipsitz, whose mother died on his December birthday.

The Lipsitz Department Store on Bay Street was a popular clothing, shoe and dry goods store and served generations of locals for more than a century before closing in 2009. For 54 years of that successful run, Lucille Lipsitz greeted and served those customers, helping them find the right fit for everything from shoes to clothing.

“She was at the store all the time,” Neil Lipsitz said, only leaving if the kids needed to go somewhere. “She would come and drop us off,” Neil Lipsitz recalled. “She was in the store, but the kids came first.”

Everybody knew Lucille Lipsitz because everybody shopped at the store, which was known for impeccable customer service and the place where you could find just what you needed, Neil said. A mynah bird named “Lippy” entertained the customers and travelers from across the South who found their way to Bay Street.

“You walked in there and you think you stepped back in time,” Neil Lipsitz said. “People would come just to go shopping there.”

What was known only to a few was her caring generosity to the community. If a family had an emergency, such as a fire, Neil Lipsitz recalled, his mother was quick to deliver a new set of dishes or clothes to the beleaguered family.

Early days in Beaufort

Lucille married Joseph Lipsitz in 1955 and the union brought her to Beaufort but it wasn’t her first experience in the retail world. Lucille’s parents ran a small clothing store in the South Carolina town of North, where she grew up. Her new husband Joseph owned Lipsitz Department Store with his sister Ethel Rabinowitz and her husband, Henry. The young bride became a force in the operation of the store, which Max Lipsitz opened in the early 1900s. Max was Joseph’s father and Neil’s grandfather.

The newlyweds built a home at 2102 Bay Street along the Beaufort River, just up the street from the store, that’s still known as the “Lipsitz House.”

While she was devoted to the store and her family, Lucille also enjoyed playing bingo or gambling in Atlantic City, Las Vegas or even on the video poker machine in the old Shell station at First Boulevard and Ribaut Road. Once, Neil recalled, she kept right on playing video poker while the station was being robbed. “She just didn’t want to leave the machine,” he said. “She had a pretty good sense of humor.”

In later years, Lucille took care of her husband Joe, who died in 2014 at the age of 93, also from complications from Alzheimer’s disease. Joe Lipsitz was 10 years older than Lucille and their birthdays were within a month of each other.

Her charm extended to locals and A-listers alike

Lipsitz Department Store was frequently asked to supply clothing needed for the Hollywood film productions happening in Beaufort. It was there Lucille hit it off with some of the stars. Gena Rowlands, the four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner who earned Oscar nominations for best actress in 1974’s “A Woman Under the Influence” and “Gloria” in 1980, was a frequent visitor while she was in town for filming “Something to Talk About,” the 1995 film starring Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid.

“She always came in to exchange recipes with my mom,” Neil Lipsitz said. “My mom loved to bake.”

During the filming of the 1979 movie “The Great Santini,” actress Blythe Danner brought her 7-year-old daughter to the store to get her fitted for a new pair of shoes. “They hit it off pretty good,” Neil Lipsitz said of Danner and his mother. Danner was buying the shoes for her daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow, who would be soon on her way to a successful film and business career.

A later chapter of celebrity footwear began with a limousine pulling up in front of the store. Again it was Danner who needed shoes after injuring her ankle on the way to a movie premier. Neil Lipsitz recalls the premier was either for “The Great Santini,” or the 1991 film “Prince of Tides,” another film set in Beaufort.

On the centennial anniversary of the store in 2002, a bouquet of balloons arrived from Danner and Paltrow.

In another star turn in the mid-1990s, Lucille shared an airplane trip with Dudley Moore, the actor and comedian who starred in the 1981 hit film “Arthur.’ Upon exiting the plane in Savannah, she promptly introduced the actor as “my friend Dudley.” Moore was in town to perform with the Savannah symphony orchestra.

Long before her days of rubbing shoulders with celebrities, Lipsitz was a lady of modest means and always remembered where she came from — especially when she was assisting customers at her department store. “With her, everybody got treated the same.” Neil recalled.

Adam Lipsitz, Neil’s son, is purchasing a bench to carry his grandmother’s name. The bench and others like it are offered through the city’s Pride of Place, a community improvement program in which residents contribute the funds. It will be placed at a location in downtown Beaufort.

She spent the past 10 years of her life at a Bluffton independent living and memory care facility. Before her passing she checked several adventures off her list including taking a ride on Harley Davidson motorcycle, which she chose for her 85th birthday in 2015.

As a frequent flier, she had looked out the window of an airplane window countless times and imagined reaching out and touching the clouds. That prompted her skydiving adventure in 2014. Her family was concerned, but nobody could stop her.

“I feel like I’ve lived a full life,” Lipsitz told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet at the time. “Now, if anything happens, I’ve lived my life and I have no regrets.”