USA TODAY International Edition
Shoppers, workers have fond memories of Sears
Many lament iconic retailer’s demise
When Pat Metzger learned a couple of months ago that a local Sears in Billings, Montana, was shutting down, he had to stop by. “When I think of Sears, I always think of meeting my wife there,” says Metzger, 54, who was a radio disc jockey doing a remote broadcast from the store when his wife-to-be, Geri, walked in 25 years ago. “I thought, ‘I will just check it out one more time.’ and I could see that they were selling everything down to the fixtures . ... It was a little bit sad.” With Sears filing for bankruptcy protection, many who’ve worked and shopped there are reminiscing about what the iconic retailer has meant in their lives. It was a place where you could buy everything from a doll to a washing machine to a tombstone. But beyond being a shopper’s cornucopia, it was also, in many instances, the place where people fell in love, found lasting friendships and earned their first paycheck. Karen Bovee, 67, worked for the company in Chicago in the late 1960s. “I worked in every department of Sears except for tombstones,” she says. “One of the best jobs I ever had was working in the toy department at Christmas . ... To see the faces on the kids – it was just heartwarming.” She also met her husband, Dave, there. “I was his second choice,” Bovee says, recalling that he came in one day to meet another woman he wanted to date. “She wasn’t interested in him. In fact, she said ... ‘Well why don’t you talk to Karen?’ ” They’ve been married for 48 years. Sears also gave Bovee a gift that she’s never forgotten. “I went to probably 30 banks in the Chicago area, and I could not get a student loan,” she says. “So then I decided to go to the Sears bank. The only reason I got my student loan to go to the University of Illinois was because I worked at Sears.’’ James Frey, 31, who worked at a Sears home services store in the Chicago area from 2006 to 2009, remembers the caliber of his colleagues as well as that of the products they sold. “The one thing that I loved about Sears was the quality of the people that you worked with,” says Frey, who recalled how Sears stood out for offering benefits to even part-time employees. He also remembers how loyal the customers were. “Folks would go there for … brands they built,” Frey says. “Kenmore. Craftsman. And they had a variety of products that were reliable and stood the test of time.” John Bacon, a 43-year-old stay at home dad in Cicero, says that when his father died in 2013, “one of the few things I wanted were his Craftsman tools from Sears . ... He always talked about the fact that if (they) broke, he could walk into any Sears and replace it, no questions asked.”