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| Greene shares memories, 76-year history of Globman' store, family |
Barry Greene shows a photo of his grandfather, Abe Globman, and Mayor Nick Prillaman on the 36th anniversary of the family store, Globman’s, in 1950. |
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
By KIM BARTO - Bulletin Staff Writer
The story of Abe Globman is the story of the American dream.
In 1911, a teenaged Russian Jewish immigrant came to Philadelphia, where he earned $3 a week in a dry goods store.
Forty years later, Globman owned one of the largest department stores in two states and was dubbed “The Merchant Prince.”
His grandson, Barry Greene, detailed the rise and fall of the Globman’s store that was once a fixture of uptown Martinsville during a lecture Tuesday at the New College Institute. About 75 people attended his presentation, including a number of former employees and shoppers.
Globman’s Department Store closed in 1991, but many Martinsville residents remember its glory days.
Greene, who became president and CEO of Globman’s in 1981 and also served as the city’s mayor from 1980 to 1982, talked about the history of the store, shared his memories and passed around old family photos.
He also explained the factors that led the business to close: declining sales, the impact of the mall opening in 1989 and the trend of family-owned department stores crumbling across the country.
“It was one of the saddest days ever for our family, and for the community,” he said of the closing. “Retailing had changed, and it would never be the same.”
Abe Globman came to Martinsville to start his business in 1915, when he was 20. He put down a $25 deposit for a 2,000-square foot building near the courthouse.
Globman married Mamie “Masha” Zimmerman shortly after, and the couple worked side by side in the store from 8 a.m. to dark on weekdays and until midnight on Saturdays. They had two children, Leon and “Sis,” Greene’s mother.
The store went through several expansions. In 1944, Abe Globman spent $41,000 on the property that later housed the store on Church Street.
“This was a real gutsy and far-sighted move because the lot was huge and located far away from the central business district,” Greene said, noting that Church Street was a residential neighborhood at that time.
He began construction on the 54,000-square foot building in the late 1940s, spending $1.1 million in all. It was one of the largest stores in Virginia and North Carolina.
“The financial community thought Grandpa was nuts,” Greene said.
But thousands of people attended the opening on May 11, 1950, and the store was so successful that Globman expanded it eight years later.
This time, he bought the Presbyterian church next door and the Baptist church across the street, allowing the store to double its size and increase parking in 1961.
Greene described his grandfather as “the only Jew in the world that owned two churches.”
The 1961 store was also the first in the area to feature escalators, he said.
Greene and his wife, Eydie, came back to Martinsville in 1966 to work at Globman’s after attending college.
“There were now five families and three generations working in Martinsville, plus two families running the branches” in Galax and Leaksville (now Eden, N.C.), Greene said.
Tragedy struck in 1970, when Greene’s father, Dan Greene, died of a heart attack at 54. The community built the Dan Greene Stadium at Martinsville High School in his memory.
When 85-year-old Abe Globman died in 1979, Greene said, the Martinsville Bulletin published a tribute to him that ended: “Although we grieve at his death, there is a hopeful message to be learned from his life. It is that a man, no matter how modest his beginning, can elevate himself, his family and his community if he has a mind to. Abe Globman showed us that.”
Greene remembered his grandmother, Masha, as “a pistol — she was tough, outspoken and respected.”
She died in 1984 at age 87, marking the end of an era, Greene said.
By 1985, the family owned 14 stores: four Globman’s Department Stores in Virginia and 10 Lots of Labels stores in North Carolina. But that year brought the sudden deaths of Greene’s mother, uncle and two store employees. Sales showed a substantial loss and never fully recovered.
Greene ended the presentation on a positive note with memories of the employees who stayed with Globman’s for decades. He recounted one story about Mildred Marshall, a children’s wear buyer who worked for the Martinsville store for 36 years.
“When Mildred made her first buying trip to New York, she went into a restaurant for lunch and asked the waiter how much they charged for a chicken sandwich,” Greene said. “‘Seventy-nine cents,’ said the waiter. ‘Seventy-nine cents?’ said Mildred. ‘For 79 cents, you can buy a whole chicken in Horsepasture.’”
Marshall was in the audience and shared her memories of that trip.
“I had never been out of Martinsville before,” she said. “I was walking down the street with Mrs. Globman when she turned around and said, ‘You’re on your own now.’ I turned around, and she was gone.
“I was so frightened, not knowing where I was,” Marshall said. “I finally had to ask a policeman to find my way back to the hotel.”
Marshall made many more buying trips after that on her own. At one point, she started a children’s fashion show that became an annual tradition at the store.
“All the local kids wanted to be in it. We’d have 50 or 60 kids modelling, and that’s what they remember me for,” Marshall said. “All those years, it was a wonderful place to work.”
Jane Pilson of Ridgeway said she was sad to see the store close and shared her shopping memories with the group.
“The thing I remember about Globman’s is the smell — everything smelled like perfume,” she said. “If someone tried to pass off a gift from another store in a Globman’s bag, you would know because it didn’t smell right.”
Desmond Kendrick, Henry County archivist and vice president of the Martinsville-Henry County Historical Society, remembered the Globmans from when he was a small child.
“I remember Mr. Globman really well — I called him ‘Uncle Abe.’ He gave me a 50-cent piece every time I went into the store, and I still have a lot of them. He taught me a very valuable lesson, to always save money,” Kendrick said. “It was a great relationship. You don’t see that anymore.”
The next free lecture in the New College Institute Non-Credit Lecture Series will be “Lanier Farms: Past and Present,” given by James “Nubby” Coleman at noon on May 8 at the Lanier Farms Boathouse. For more information, call 403-5600. |
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