As walls fall, former employees share tales of Stow department store's golden days
The store that anchored the Stow-Kent Shopping Center will soon be no more. Demolition has been progressing at a steady pace since the start of December, and the process is now in its final stages.
It stood for 50 years — first as O'Neil's, then the May Company, then Kaufmann's before ending up as Macy's. Hordes of employees and customers have come and gone during the building's half-century of operation, each with a story to tell.
On Wednesday, Stow Mayor John Pribonic invited a group of ex-employees spanning the life of the structure to reminisce about their part in the store's history.
A group of ten ex-employees gathered in Stow City Hall's council chambers, speaking fondly about the camaraderie they've formed over the years, swapping stories and laughing.
Joanna Bennett brought in a photo album with snapshots of her time with working at the store. Bennett and the mayor stood at the podium in council chambers, leafing through the pages and talking about the photos documenting decades-old work.
A few weeks prior, a group of 19 former workers gathered at the demolition site. Mayor Pribonic accompanied them.
More:Macy’s closing its Stow-Kent Plaza store
More:Demolition of former Macy's underway in Stow-Kent Plaza
What struck him about the group of 19 that gathered near the remains of the store that meant so much to them is their strong bond.
"The stories that were shared," Pribonic said, "it went deeper than somebody just working at a store — it was like family."
Pribonic, himself a 42-year veteran of Acme Fresh Market — is no stranger to the bonds that form while working in retail. In the half-hour he spent in the frigid cold with the department store's alumni, he said, he knew there was more to their relationship than their previous association as co-workers.
A lifetime of stories
Norma Rosar and Bennett have been friends for nearly 50 years. Both got their start at the department store when it was O'Neil's, Rosar in 1968 and Bennett in 1969. Rosar retired in 2012 and Bennett left in 2016, leaving behind a combined 91 years of experience.
Rosar recalls a snowy winter evening when she and Bennett were the only two left in the parking lot after closing.
"We had several inches of snow. [Bennett] had no gloves — I had a pair of gloves, so I gave them to her," Rosar said. Bennett's car door locks were frozen shut. Luckily, there was a window in the back of the car through which Bennett was able to crawl.
Rosar lived in Brady Lake at the time and Bennett in Cuyahoga Falls.
"So we both took off and both said, hopefully we'll get home fine," Rosar said. Once she got home after braving inclement weather and steep hills, she called Bennett to make sure she got back safely. Bennett had beaten her home.
"We stuck together through whatever we had to go through," said Jo Lofland. Everyone working there was weathering the same storm, together. Even their managers felt like friends.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the stories these women shared is how standard retail practices have changed.
Lofland started working at the O'Neil's flagship in downtown Akron in the ready-to-wear department. Everything was always full price except for two yearly sales, she said.
"You never had to worry about [something] going on sale the next day or a month later," Lofland said. However, whenever they rolled out a sale, shoppers came pouring into the store.
Customers knew the sales associates by name, and they took a much more active hand in helping shoppers pick out what suited them.
The quasi-familial relationship between the employees seems to extend even to the customers.
Lofland said that over the course of her career, she assisted three generations of the same family — grandmother, mother and child— with their shopping.
"They even named one of their babies after me," Lofland said.
Any success the store experienced can be chalked up to the support from the community, said JoAnne Kitchin. Macy's didn't close because there was no business, she said. The physical building just couldn't keep up with the march of time.
Sad news, indomitable spirit
News of the closure in 2020 was sudden.
In early January, "they came in one morning and said the store's closing," said Debbie Butler. A week later, a going-out-of-business sale started.
"It was so quick," Butler said. "We were devastated; we had no idea."
After a brief dalliance with the idea of updating the building, the owners of the property — Stow Kent Associates LLC, according to the Summit County Fiscal Office — opted for the cheaper option: destruction.
The building's closing and demolition, while dispiriting, hasn't knocked the cornerstone out of their friendships. A group of 35 ex-employees meets for lunch once a month.
Lofland, for her part, came away from the site with something of a souvenir.
She asked one of the workers performing the demolition if she could go into the job site to retrieve a brick from the structure. The worker said that she couldn't, but that he would get her one.
"He got it and came out and blessed me, said 'Merry Christmas' and put it in my car," said Lofland. "He says, 'This is my hardest job I ever had.' He says, 'Every demolition my company does, there's always someone sad, coming there, standing, watching.' "
The future of the site is currently under discussion and remains uncertain. But once a month, a clutch of people gets together to keep memories of all the store alive — reminiscing, laughing and bonding even after what brought them together has been reduced to so much shattered material.
Contact reporter Derek Kreider at DKreider@Gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Former employees swap tales as Stow department store is dismantled
