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For more than 40 years, her Hideaway Shop has been where a genteel generation of women has shopped for its clothes. White
gloves and summer hats may not be vogue again this year, but Pollard has them, just as she’s always had. She leaves provocative
lingerie to trendy stores and continues to sell no-nonsense, stark white foundation garments in a staggering number of sizes.
Far from mall department stores and upscale boutiques, the Hideaway Shop is where you’d expect to see June Cleaver
and Donna Reed scanning the racks, but not Ginger or even Marianne.
A holdout of bygone fashion year when women dressed
for the market and for dinner, Pollard’s store is also a relic of a time when there were elm trees along Main Street and other
dress shops and shoe stores and soda fountains and haberdasheries.
But by the end of the summer, the Hideaway Shop
will be gone, too.
``I thought I would leave before they have to take me of here with my toes up,`` said Pollard,
who turned 84 last Sunday.
The pink `Going out of Business` signs - probably the only time neon has been associated
with the shop - went up last month, to the surprise of just about everyone in town.
``I’ve been here 43 years,``
she said. ``I have a little health problem and I’m tired. I feel bad - I’m leaving some good customers, but it’s time.``
A few days into her final sale earlier this month saw several women in her shop that morning and there was still a mighty
collection of dresses and skirts and other accouterments of femininity to be had. Pollard, who stands just about a head above
the racks, moved through the narrow aisles, in search of someone needing assistance. She helped to guide one fragile lady
to the mirror in the back of the store, where she held three dresses up to her.
``That looks very pretty,`` she told
her.
Two of the three dresses left the store. There are plenty left and Pollard hasn’t even brought out the winter
merchandise.
Half a lifetime ago, Pollard came to Lancaster by way of her native Ohio and Brattleboro, Vt. She spent
some years in Vermont tailoring and spending evenings teaching adult education. Her late husband, Lisle, was a chef and the
couple found their way to Lancaster, where Bobbie Pollard decided that her experience as a dressmaker and tailor was needed.
``No one ever thought I’d make it here,`` she said. ``No one thought I could come to a country town and make it.``
It took time to build up her clientele and to expand her collection beyond the one rack with which she opened her
business.
When her husband went to work for the Mountain View House in Whitefield, he sent business her way in the
form of society matrons in need of a wardrobe suited to the grand hotel and its leisurely pursuits. She recalls one of her
customers.
``A director from (the movie studio) MGM came up there and he liked it so well, that he and his wife decided
to stay there,`` she said. ``His wife had no everyday clothes so she came down to me to outfit her. She bought three or four
outfits and that’s when I saw my first $100 bill.``
For many summers after that, she was kept busy not only selling
day and evening wear to out of towners, but also coaxing breathing room from the seams of gowns that became a smidgen too
tight from the hearty food served up at the hotel.
She set herself apart from the other dress shops in town when the local Girl Scout troop approached her to put on a fashion
show as a fundraiser.
``I said to the leader `I’m new. What about the other people in town,``` she recalled. ``They
told me they wouldn’t do it for them.``
While she did not have the inventory to put on a fashion show, Pollard took
a drive to the garment district in Boston, armed with the measurements of her models, and bought an entire collection.
``I bought hats, gloves, coats, sportswear, jewelry,`` she said. ``The girls made enough money so they could take a trip
to Canada with four chaperones.``
And not long after that, Pollard bought more dress racks.
There was a
time when Pollard helped dress young ladies for their special occasions. At prom time, she would order one gown each from
an assortment of vendors so no two girls would be wearing the same dress to the big event. But there came the time when fashions
changed too fast to keep them happy.
``If you cater to teens, you’d go out of business,`` she said. ``You can’t please
the little darlings.``
Just about any girl who grew up in Lancaster has a story about accompanying her mother or
grandmother to the shop.
``I remember squeezing down the aisles amid a bunch of plastic wrapped clothing items, wondering
if this was my adult destiny for wardrobe options,`` recalls one young woman.
At the rear of the Hideaway, dozens
and dozens of long dresses are hanging, wrapped in plastic. There’s not as much demand for them, she said, but enough from
mothers of the bride to members of the Order of the Eastern Star, who come in every year for formal gowns.
And when
a gown outlived itself for a formal occasion, the owner brought it back so Pollard could give it new life.
``I’d
cut it off for tea length,`` she said, `` and use the extra material for a matching handbag.``
Indeed, such a dress
bought from the Hideaway could be worn again.
Pollard keeps her own counsel about fashion, except on one subject.
``I can’t stand women wearing blue jeans,`` she said. ``It took a long time for women to put pants on and now they
don’t want to put on a dress.``
There is something about Pollard that makes it comfortable to confront one’s bodily
shortcomings. She can take a quick look at a woman and correctly ascertain dress and bra size.
``You can do that
if you’ve been doing it for 43 years,`` she says with a laugh.
A not so taut tummy? Pollard has just the thing to
pull it in and she finds it with unerring accuracy from a dizzying collection of undies, girdles and brassieres that range
from 34AA to 64DD.
And denial about one’s size is something she deals with subtlety.
``I’ve had women come
in here who were a size 16 or an 18 trying to get into a 14,`` she said. ``I had a woman come in wearing a 20 or 22 and she
left in a (size) 52. I do what they ask and then I go to the rack and bring them something and say `Now try this size.` They
don’t get upset.``
Despite owning her own dress shop, Pollard doesn’t think she’s all that fashionable.
``I
think I could dress better, but I like to fit other people. I don’t care what I look like, as long as I look decent. As long
as other people look good, that’s all I care about,`` she said.
Pollard has no plans yet for her retirement, but
it’s likely she’ll keep up with her civic and charitable roles. She’s been a member of the Business and Professional Women’s
Club for more than 50 years and every Christmas morning for the past 30 years, she’s played Santa Claus for residents of the
Country Village Health Care Center.
``I need to finish here, first,`` she said, taking aim at customer who might
just might need her help in picking out a dress.
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