Thursday, June 19 2008
Kenna Holm
SHERMS’ MEN’S APPAREL—SHERM LOVELESS
Today I was thinking about Sherm Loveless andhis wonderful Men’s Store he had on Main Street. I called his daughter, Pat Hill, and we had some good laughs about her dad and his friends.
Sherm worked at Coray and Pickering Furniture Store for a long time and then he bought the building that housed the Lant and Persson Clothiers and it became Sherm’s Mens Apparel.
Sherm had his own band and he played at all the school dances so he was best buddies with all the high school kids. They loved coming in and just shooting the breeze with him.
He played the saxophone in his band along with a lot of other talented guys. Ardella Burdick (mother of Brent Burdick, former City Councilman) sang with the band. She had a beautiful voice. Sherm’s wife would go and set on the sidelines while Sherm and the band played. She was a good woman and always supported Sherm.
Sherm had a table set up in his back room at the store where he and his old buddies, Selby Dixon, Dutch Draper, Roy Bills, Monte Taylor, Dick Peery would play dominoes everyday.
One day Monte and Dick played ajokeon Shermby sneaking in his back door while he was busy with a customer and lifted his cash register and took it in the back room and hid it in some boxes. Poor Sherm was frantic when he couldn't find his moneyand ofcourse everyone looked innocent. He called the police and then finally Monte and Dick confessed they had played the joke on him and of course Sherm just laughed right along with them.
His son Brent told one story about how he had been down to the library on Utah Ave and Main (the old old library) and he was on his bike and came up to his dad’s store and put the bike against the window and the window broke. Boy, Brent thought he had had it but his dad didn t say a thing. Brent said He was just a kind-kind man What a tribute to his dad.
Sherm used to let Brent and his friends climb up on the roof to watch the parade on Onion Days.
When Pat would go up to help her dad when her kids were little, he had a play pen in the back room for her so she could take the babies and they had somewhere to play and sleep.
I don t know how many remember old Roy Kitchen but he used to come by everyday to Sherm s and Sherm would give him 50 cents to go buy a drink or what ever. He was so kind to everyone and especially those who had problems.
Les Bennett use to do all of Sherm’s deliveries and one day he had little packs of peanuts that he stuffed in between the pants and shirts and when Sherm went to show someone some of the merchandise, there were the peanuts. I m not sure how long it took him to find all of them but I m sure he laughed as loud and hard as anyone he told the story to.
Sherm belonged to the Fire Department and it was his passion. At that time, (before beepers) he had a fire phone in his store and when someone would call in about a fire, he would just run out the back door over to the station. It didn t matter if there were people in thereorwhat.He never locked a doorbut Lynn Page was good to watch the front of the store when he heard the siren go off. (Wouldn t it be fun to have that kind of trust now days)
In 1971, he sold the store to Dr. Dutson and he remodeled it and his son in law, Charlie Ringger managed it and it was called Charles IV.
Sherm went to work as a bailiff for the county after he closed the store and loved it.
Pat told me that after her father died, her brother Brent was going over the old books from Sherm’s Mens Apparel and there were thousands of dollars out on the books that was never collected. Sherm would never send a bill, he just trusted everyone.
Oh how much fun to look back and remember when..
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