Gen’s Bridal Shop in McCook

I stopped down at the office the other day and Mike Baumfalk handed me a donation for the genealogical library that he had found among his grandmother’s things. His grandmother, Gen (Ike) Wagner, was better known to us all as the proprietor of Gen’s Bridal Shop, a cornerstone of McCook’s retail stores for years.

Gen was the daughter of Sara Ike, another strong independent woman of our town. Gen grew up watching her mother run a beauty shop out of her home on East 2nd street and learned the ins and outs of being business owner from her mother.

That acumen must have stuck with Gen because in the late 1940’s, she opened a dress shop in a basement storefront on the east side of Norris Avenue approximately where Cindy Hughes Haircut Company sits now. The name of her business was Em and Gen’s because she had a partner who was also a dear friend, Emma (Smith) Slauter. According to the family, Emma helped Gen open her shop but really wasn’t wanting to be a merchant and when she determined Gen was on her feet in the business world, withdrew from the business and Gen moved her shop across the street to the west as Gen’s and remained there until she retired.

Many a bride and bridesmaid were outfitted in that shop along with the women searching for that special dress to wear, perhaps to the Elks Club on New Year’s Eve or to the Easter Sunday Buffets. Gen was a friend to many, my mother included, and I spent quite a few Saturdays viewing the apparel in her shop while being chastised to not to touch anything. These were the type of Saturdays where women and girls would dress up to go to town, not my favorite thing to do, but the reward of a treat from the Olympia seemed to appease my displeasure at having my hair put in ringlets and wearing a dress. We would walk up and down Norris stopping at shops to visit with my mother’s contemporaries and pick up a few items that we needed at home.

I have no idea what my father and brother did during the time mother was taking me from store to store but it may have involved getting an order in at Loose and Smith’s for hot ham sandwiches since my father found it to be inappropriate for his women to enter a pool hall.

But, back to the item gifted, it was the funeral book for Emma’s husband, Lloyd Slauter, who few, if any, will remember as an early bakery owner downtown. Apparently the Slauters had no children and when they were both gone, their dear friend, Gen, kept the memories. Within the book were the obituaries for not only Lloyd, but also Harry D. Strunk, Harry Woolard, Mrs. Anna Gummere, and Floyd Smith.

Lloyd and Emma had come to McCook where he was employed with Fallick’s Bakery until 1919 when he purchased the bakery from Mr. Fallick. For some reason, not told in his obituary, he sold the bakery to Stanley Fallick, a son of the original owner, three years later and moved across Norris to open his own bakery. Lloyd passed away in 1943 at the age of 51 after a long illness.

The funeral book is a who’s who of McCook in the 1940’s. As you go down the list of attendees to the services and then follow with the list of people sending floral arrangements you literally get a picture of businessmen and women of our town: Sutton, Brelin, Rutt, Drake, Granger Brothers, Fallicks, Ravenswood Dairy, Harr, Budig, Kidd, Clark Tailor Shop, and on.

Funeral books and obituaries are a golden source for information concerning not just the person who has passed but their families and personal history. The SW Nebraska Genealogical Society has cataloged books going back into the late 1800s for the obituaries printed in our local papers that are available for the public to search. Our library is open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-4 p.m. Stop by 110 West C, Suite M-3, for help locating the persons of your past.