Mrs. Ferguson, 86, Retires A lot has changed in the Parkville area since 1938, when Mrs. Fannie Ferguson and Mrs. Bertie Mink moved their drycleaning business to the area from Virginia. Harford Road in Parkville was still country then, the two sisters remember. Until after World War II, only "a few little shops" dotted Harford Road, serving the few needs of the inhabitants of the rural area. Gradually, though, the area has become a bustling hub of commercial activity. Many changes have combined to transform sleepy Harford Road into a busy street. Now, another change has taken place in Parkville. Mrs. Ferguson, age 86, and her sister Mrs. Bertie Mink, age 76, are retiring. Theirs was one of the first shops on Harford Road. "We must be serving our third generation now," said Mrs. Mink. The ladies wave and call a greeting to most customers who enter the shop. But it is the shop's new owners, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony LaBue, who accept the soiled coats and dresses for ceaning [sic]. Mrs. Ferguson says she does not yet miss the business. "I'm keeping busy," she says. She and her sister plan to travel. The one place in the world she'd like to see, she says, is Alaska. "We've been to Canada, Mexico and California."

Almost from the start, the sisters have had good luck in the cleaning business. Some of it may not have looked like good luck at the time, but they and the business have survived several crises, coming out of them stronger.

In 1960, there was a fire in the shop, "We lost everything," said Mrs. Mink. But, "the people were just wonderful." Their landlord also owned the old Acme grocery store, and he let them continue to work there until their store was rebuilt. Unfortunately, the antiques from Mrs. Mink's private collection were irreplaceable. Soon, though, she brought more antiques from home, and things were back to normal at the cleaner's. [sic]

Another problem surfaced four years ago, when a store across the street had an explosion. The explosion broke glass in the cleaner's window and ruined still more of Mrs. Mink's antiques. The cause of that explosiion [sic] was never determined, but "They think it was a gas leak," says Mr.s [sic] Mink. But through these problems, which could have caused some customers to seek drycleaning services elsewhere, the business has continued to be good.

"People have been so wonderful to us," said Mrs. Mink. "We have really led a good life, our customers are so nice."

Now, Mrs. Ferguson and Mrs. Mink are "keeping busy" at home with their three poodles, and their memories of a good life in Parkville.

The Parkville Reporter doesn't exist anymore, having been taken over by the Northeast News quite some time ago. This front page story from January, 1978 is remarkable and poignant in many ways, as it honors two of the Parkville community's founding "mothers." I grew up at that cleaners. I stamped laundry tickets with their route number, #41, when I was too young to do anything else. My sister, Judy, and I played "hide and seek" in the clothes, the hampers, and even in the machinery. I counted money, sorted tickets, cleaned pants pockets and cuffs in the rotating brushes of the cuff machine, waited on customers, routed drivers' deliveries and balanced their money bags, hopped the delivery truck on Saturdays, drove my own route later on. Most of all I learned about work from two women who taught work by example, 10 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, every week of the year, save for a few rare vacations--for 40 years. I get worn out just remembering it.

I remember that fire. When Mrs. Mink said in the article, "We lost everything," she wasn't exaggerating. What I remember about the fire that doesn't appear in the article is that the old Acme grocery that their landlord so generously let them use was simply an empty, gutted building. It not only lacked fixtures and any manner of retail hospitality, it also lacked electricity and heat. My poor memory tells me that the fire was in October--that may not be correct-- but it was cold weather. All of the cleaning work they took in was trucked downtown to a gracious competitor who did the actual cleaning at a small discount. Then it was picked up and brought back out to Parkville to be delivered to Ferguson's customers. Mrs. Ferguson resurrected an antique (even at that time) treadle sewing machine--one that operates by foot-work without the need for electricity. She sat there in an overcoat, sewing repairs and alterations until her fingers became numb from the cold. The generosity that they remember in the article is that their customers mostly stuck with them, and returned when the cleaners was rebuilt. One loss in the remodeling after the fire was the two neon signs that hung in the old storefront. I recall being told that those signs were made for them in the years following the depression by an out-of-work artisean, in exchange for food and clothing. I can't swear that that story is true (maybe someone else can verify it for me), but I hope it is, because it is a good one.

I remember that explosion too, as if the fire wasn't enough. Barb (my wife) and I were living at my Mom's on Lavender Avenue at the time, a block away from the cleaners, and I have a distinct memory of us being awakened by a sound and vibration that at first, in that sleep-dazed state of being jarred awake in the middle of the night, I could only interpret as the porch falling off of the back of my Mother's house. the glow of the fire ball was in the sky, and we walked up to Harford Road to find glass and chunks of building, and a refrigerator blown into the middle of the street. The large cleaners window that comprised the entire front of the shop, being directly across the street, was blown completely away. At that time my Grandmother, Bertie, had a huge collection of her antiques in the cleaners; many more than were there at the time of the fire. She had a long stretch of shelves filled with carnival glass and figurines and all things fragile and breakable. They were completely demolished. I remember my Mom and her husband, Bob Doster, sitting at their dining room table for months afterward, with crumbs of porcelain and glass scattered in bits and little piles all over the table top. It was a true labor of love as they tried to sort and match the pieces, and glue them together when a match was found.

As the article states, "the sisters had good luck in the cleaning business." But the irony of Parkville's biggest fire right next store, and its biggest explosion right across the street, says more about the Ferguson and Mink character than it does about luck--good or bad.