A Jewelry Store at Christmas
By: Terry Barr
Tags: Nonfiction, Christmas, Memories, Family, Love

This morning I got word that a longtime Bessemer, Alabama, institution is closing this Christmas Eve. Longtime institutions in Bessemer might not strike any chords within most of you because either you’ve never heard of Bessemer, or if you have, the most positive associations come from two famous eateries: The Bright Star and Bob Sykes Barbecue. Both are truly institutions, the “Star” having been in business since 1907 and still the oldest continuously-serving restaurant in Alabama.

Neither of these is the closing business, however, and that’s fortunate for my holiday, or any day, psyche.

The business that is shutting down after sixty-three years of operation is a small jewelry store on 19th Street North.

Loyle Seymour Jewelers.

Loyle Seymour, who started the shop, has been gone from us for longer than I can say. Actually, I don’t know the year he passed, but the store has been in good hands in his stead by virtue of his daughter Carol and her husband Larry Parsons.

I remember Loyle well: humble, courteous to a fault, even meek. Gracious. He came to our house often, but never exactly for a social call. My father was the manager for Standard Jewelry Co (Wholesale Only) in Birmingham, and Seymour Jewelry bought much from Standard. I don’t know who worked out the arrangement, but rather than ship the jewelry that fifteen miles from Birmingham to Bessemer and incurring greater freight charges, Dad brought the packages home with him, and Loyle, and later Carol and Larry, would ring our doorbell anytime from six to eight that night to receive them.

Often, I was the one answering the bell, ready to hand over the merchandise to this thin man dressed in pleated pants and his suit coat.

“Oh, thank you sweetly,” he’d say as I placed the package in his hands. “Thank you kindly,” his voice always soft, his stature always in recession, almost bowing the whole time.

I had never known, and haven’t since, anyone named Loyle. Neither have I ever met someone who seemed so embarrassed and thankful for such a favor, if favor this was.

Dad always said that Seymour’s was one of their best customers — faithful, dependable, and never delinquent on their account. He tried to persuade anyone who needed some fine pice of jewelry — engagement rings, watches, whatever — to purchase them from Seymour’s instead of from one of the so-called fancier places in town. Most people, at least in my memory, didn’t listen, maybe because Seymour’s wasn’t a glittering show palace of jewelry, but instead, a small store with a single neon sign over the entrance: Loyle Seymour Jewelers.

In other words, Loyle was as loyal to Dad as was Dad to him. That was the kind of men they were.

One of my most stark memories is the rainy and cold night our doorbell rang. Deeply pitch-dark and around this time of year. Loyle had been working late because, obviously, Christmas is big for the jewelry business. The poor man seemed both tired and soaked as he stood at the door, waiting for likely the last package of the season (these packages were always wrapped in plain brown paper with a beige strip of seal. Nothing fancy on the outside, clearly belying what lay beneath the wrapping).

I wondered how he was holding up, understanding how fatigued and stretched my own father was after working late every night, even on Saturdays and Sundays from Thanksgiving till Christmas. I would have understood had Mr. Seymour simply signed for the package, uttered a “Merry Christmas,” and then continued on his way. However, that wouldn’t have been him — consistently steady and loyal.

“Oh, bless your heart. Thank you sweetly; thank you kindly, and I hope you and your family have a blessed Christmas.”

I can’t emphasize this well or enough. He would repeat himself many times in such doorway encounters, never needing to come in, never worried about being left on the doorstep.

You could say that “This was just business, after all,” and you’d be right. Except that we might mean different things by “business.”

What I mean is that a jewelry store in a depressed town can’t last for sixty-three years unless the people operating it have established goodwill with the community, with their loyal patrons. They have to offer quality, exceptional service. They have to make their customers feel wanted, valued, especially in recessed times. They have to be reasonable in their retail prices and be willing to work hours to accommodate others, not themselves.

They have to overcome burglaries, robbing.

They have to know that the community trusts and values them.

Every Christmas for as long as I remember, we got a gift from Loyle Seymour Jewelry, usually a Whitman’s Sampler, which seems so very appropriate to the age and to the givers.

So if I never understood the arrangement where Dad and Mr. Seymour went out of their way to deliver the goods, I do understand that relationships are built on such actions.

After all, in the material world isn’t jewelry, arguably, the most personal gift we can bestow on each other?

Sadly, Bessemer is losing again, for Carol and Larry are retiring. Loyle Seymour Jewelry will close its doors for good on Christmas Eve at 2:00 PM, central time, which, strangely enough, is the twenty-year memorial of my Dad’s passing.

On that day, I’ll be lighting a Yahrzeit candle for both of them.