From the Windsor Star – February 27, 1976. The downtown Laura Secord shop was closing down and moving out as the Prince Edward hotel at Park & Ouellette was getting ready for demolition.
Anne Rennin, Mrs. Denise Girard. Mrs. Gertrude Michaud and Mrs. Barbara Shuttleworth have been working together in the downtown store for the past nine years.
After 25 years
The Secord scent’s going
There is a faint aroma of chocolat, a smell that
has seeped into the white-covered shelves and walls
over the past 25 years.
But, that aroma is the only thing left of the downtown Laura Secord store, now abandoned in the face
of modern needs.
For the past 25 tears the white-aproned salesladies
have sorted tons of chocolates from their station in a
corner of the Prince Edward Hotel on Ouellette
Avenue.
Even as the staff wiped the last speck of dust from
the bared shelves, customers peered through the window, looking for the familiar lady adorning the
Secord candy box.
On Thursday, with the corner store resembling a
Warehouse, a young girl stepped up in the counter
and asked manageress Mrs. Barbara Shuttleworth for
a part–time job.
“We’re out of business.”
“I guess I can see that.” the girl replied.
Mrs. Shuttleworth, along with her staff of three is
going to miss the daily routine of downtown business.
“We’ve been here alone for nine years. We sort of
feel we are holding the building up.” she said. Soon.
the Prince Edward will face the demolition ball to
make room for a hank building.
But the Laura Secord customers are a stubborn lot
“Customers have come in here and they say they
are looking for spots for us downtown — somewhere
we can move.” Mrs. Shuttleworth said.
And she believes in downtown. A place where the
customers and businessmen are “nice.”
Also, she thinks the closing ‘‘will break up the best
damned team Laura Secord ever had.”
The women have been together for the last eight
years and all of them will switch to housework after
today.
Mrs. Shuttleworth said she doesn’t know if the
company has made plans for relocation downtown or
whether the closing will simply mean the end.
Originally, Laura Secord opened its first store here
59 years ago in a small Ouellette Avenue shop near
the Palace Theatre. It moved when the Prince
Edward opened.