Stockton Record, CA
Jan 20 2008
A business fixture of 52 years
By Michael Fitzgerald
Record Columnist
January 20, 2008 6:00 AM
Gluskin’s camera shop is closing after 60 years, Bookland’s closing
after 30 years, and big corporations are taking over. But we still
have Mrs. Tekerlek.
Mrs. Tekerlek – Alyce Tekerlek, 78 – is the founder, proprietor, sole
staff member and Cal Ripken Award winner of La Maison dress shop on
Main Street in Stockton.
This will be her 50th year.
So if you want to talk about old-fashioned shopkeepers with
multigenerational customers, one of those stitches who hold together
a community, Mrs. Tekerlek is your type.
"I can’t stay at home," confessed Mrs. Tekerlek, who speaks with a
Greek accent. "I get up in the morning, I’m used to come here. It
must be sickness."
Mrs. Tekerlek is not part of downtown’s comeback. She is part of its
never-left. She opened La Maison on April 6, 1958. Before that, she
worked for two years on the Miracle Mile.
Her 52 years behind the "open" sign puts her second in Stockton
business longevity, as far as I know, only to Dorothy Clare. Clare is
entering her 53rd year as the friendly face behind the lunch counter
at The Ranch coffee shop.
If there’s somebody who has been in business longer than these two,
call Fitzgerald the columnist. You’ll be warmly received.
"I like my work," Mrs. Tekerlek said credibly. "Even though the
business is not as it used to be."
Business is not as is used to be because Mrs. Tekerlek’s customers
are getting up there. Take customer Kathe Underwood. Underwood is 99
years old.
"I buy everything I own there," Underwood said. "Because she has
exactly what I want, and she does the alterations very well. And
she’s just a pleasant person."
Also, downtown is not the hive of commerce it was in, say 1964. Some
days, Mrs. Tekerlek goes without a single customer.
Six days a week, though, she still unlocks the little storefront
tucked beneath the marquee of the Bob Hope Theatre and opens her
tidy, narrow, dress-lined shop.
"She refuses to retire," said her nephew, Assemblyman Greg
Aghazarian.
Mrs. Tekerlek inherited her dreadnought work ethic from her father.
An Armenian refugee, he fled the Turkish genocide, starting over in
Athens with nothing but a family to feed.
"Even when I had babies, I did not like to stay home," Mrs. Tekerlek
proclaimed. "I had C-sections and was home one month." Then she was
back behind the sewing machine.
Dorothy Clare plans to work two more years, then retire from The
Ranch coffee shop. But Mrs. Tekerlek has no plans to retire – ever.
"I’m still going to be here, I don’t know how long."
So she put in a plug for her shop. She’s earned it.
"I have very unique things here," boasted Mrs. Tekerlek. "Just go to
a department store. They have racks and racks of the same thing. You
go to a party, five of them have the same dress. But here, three of
them is the most I buy."
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