Melba Mebane never thought she would retire from the department store she loved and worked at for 74 years — until the traffic on her commute became unbearable.
“As soon as I walked through the door, I put my car keys on the table, looked at my son, and said, ‘I’m done,’” Mebane recalls.
The Dillard’s where she worked in Tyler, Texas, was only a 15-minute drive from her house, but traffic could sometimes double the commute — an inconvenience that Mebane, who turns 91 in November, no longer had the patience for.
She retired from her job as a sales associate at Dillard’s last month, leaving behind a career that spanned more than seven decades.
Mebane began working as an “elevator girl” at the Mayer & Schmidt department store in 1949 when she was just 17 years old, through a work-study program at Tyler High School. The store was acquired by Dillard’s in 1956.
She moved to the men’s clothing department then later the cosmetics counter, where she stayed until she retired.
“There were these gift baskets that one of the girls just could not sell,” says Mebane. “They asked me to try, so I stepped out from behind the counter in the aisle and talked to people about the baskets … I sold every single one. So I was told that’s where I was staying.”
How her job became her ‘second life’
For Mebane, her job at Dillard’s has always been “more than a paycheck.”
As a single, working mom, it became a “second life,” for her and her son Terry Mebane, he says. “The Dillards, and all of her co-workers, became like a second family to us.”
Whenever the chain’s founder, William T. Dillard, visited the store with his children, she’d help babysit his daughter, Drue Dillard Matheny, who’s now an executive vice president at Dillard’s. Mebane remembers taking a younger Matheny out for popcorn or window shopping around the mall.
The pair, who have known each other for nearly 65 years, reunited at Mebane’s retirement party in June.
Terry, 60, has fond memories, too, of hanging out in the store while his mom finished up her shift. Mebane always worked at least 40 hours each week, typically from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. or sometimes until 9 p.m., when the store closed.
“There were times I’d ask my grandfather to take me to the store around 7 p.m. after we ate dinner together so I could run around the mall and ride home with her after she was off,” he says.
She followed the same pre-work morning routine for 74 years: Waking up at 6 a.m., brewing a pot of coffee and making a quick breakfast — usually sausage and biscuits — then running errands before getting to Dillard’s at 9 a.m. sharp so she could claim her favorite parking spot.
“I loved going to work every day,” says Mebane, who adds that she never missed a day of work, unless she was really sick. “If you’re happy with what you’re doing, why not keep doing it?”
Her best advice for finding a long, fulfilling career is not to take a job simply because it pays well, because “money can disappoint you,” Mebane warns. “Finding something you’re good at, and people you enjoy working with, is so much more important.”
To be happier at work, ‘it’s important to invest in your relationships’
Since she started working at Dillard’s, Mebane had several opportunities to become a manager, but she always turned the offers down. “Nobody likes management, because they have to make the tough decisions,” she says. “I liked my friends at work, and I wanted to keep them, so I just focused on being the best salesperson I could be.”
Mebane did, however, leverage her close relationship with the Dillards to tailor the job to her changing needs and desires throughout her career. To be happier at work “it’s important to invest in your relationships,” Mebane says.
When she turned 65, Terry says, she was ready to retire and considering it, but Mr. Dillard, the founder, convinced her to stick around a little while longer.
“He told her, ‘You have a job with me for as long as you want one. I will never let you go. What do you want to do?’” he recalls. “She told him she loved everything about the job except working nights and Sundays, and they adjusted her schedule accordingly. That was a game changer.”
A few years ago, she convinced her manager to replace the hard linoleum on the floors behind the cosmetics counter with soft carpeting, as standing most of the day was getting less comfortable.
Many of Mebane’s former co-workers visit her in the retirement village in Tyler where she recently moved, taking her out to lunch, the movies or shopping. She also fields a lot of phone calls and visits from her four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Terry says the women who still work at Dillard’s cosmetics counter in Tyler even take turns calling Mebane and checking in on her every week. Those friendships, Mebane says, made working at Dillard’s “the best job I ever had.”