Wilson's Department Store in Greenfield, Massachusetts, is shutting its doors after 137 years, once everything is sold — including the mannequins. For many, the family-owned store has been a fixture both on Main Street and in their own families' lives.
For shoppers and employees, these final days in business have been part reunion, part wake.
Still, there's no doubt customers like Valerie Magoon are finding some bargains.
“Oh my gosh! I have hit every section,” Magoon said. “Clothes, homewares. I've got a coat, makeup, jewelry.”
Magoon has been shopping at Wilson’s since before she was born, she said. In the first few days of the liquidation sale, she said she bought two Waterford crystal glasses but not the decanter, and she couldn't stop thinking about it. So she came back and bought it the next day.
At that point, Magoon had been at Wilson’s three days in a row.
“I'm a little concerned I'm trying to just purchase all of Wilson's, and recreate it in my home so I can hold on to it,” Magoon said.
Also it helps her hold onto memories of her mother, who often shopped at the store, and died a few years ago, Magoon said.
“I can feel her so much here with me being like, 'I would want that; I would want that,” Magoon said.
Regular shoppers brag all the clerks know their names and if you buy bras, they know your cup size.
Wilson's closing has been hard on employees too, and on store president Kevin O'Neil. His wife's grandfather bought the store in 1929.
“My emotions have been up and down a lot,” O’Neil said. “I feel a huge loss.”
O’Neil said the closing is not a financial decision.
The decision to close Wilson's is not a financial one, O’Neil said.
“It's really a personal decision. It's a sad one, a very difficult one. I love the customers, the community, everything about it,” he said.
Wilson's could have stayed open for a few more years, O’Neil said, but he made the decision to close now to spend more time with family, while he can. His own father died in his mid-60s and that haunts O'Neil.
The O’Neil children — all adults — have no interest in taking on the 100-square-foot store, O'Neil said. If they had been interested, with the steady decline in sales, O'Neil said he would have talked them out of it.
The store is down to 35 employees, from almost 200 when O'Neil first got here about 40 years ago.
On Black Friday, the first day of the storewide sale, Wilson’s was unusually packed with customers.
Ruthie McDonald said the checkout lines were really long that day. She’s been shopping at Wilson's since she was a teenager, from the candy counter to the juniors department — and now for her own children.
“It was kind of a reunion,” McDonald said. “Everybody I knew in town was here shopping and, you know, all kind of saying the same thing. Everybody's sad.”
Greenfield residents managed to keep a Walmart from opening up in town a few years ago, but online shopping may be the unstoppable competition.
Wilson's shoppers have taken to social media in the last few weeks, posting about how the store was where they registered for their wedding, had their hair done, brought their grandmother to get her girdle adjusted and played on the elevators when they were little.
For Laura Herbert, shopping at Wilson's has been almost a time-travel experience. For the last six years she’s been blogging about what she buys at the store.
“Today when I came in, I was at the makeup counter and someone said, 'Oh, I recognize you. You're Wilson's Girl. I love your blog. I read your blog.' And I was so touched by that,” Herbert said.
The blog Wilson's Girl is filled with stories and photos of the hats, dresses and kitchen gadgets Herbert bought at the store.
And on this maybe last shopping day at Wilson’s, Herbert made a few purchases and then found O'Neil and his wife standing near the ladies' lingerie department. She introduced herself and thanked them. Then she went home and wrote about the conversation, including the part where they all came to the same conclusion: they don't know where they'll shop once Wilson’s is gone for good.
