By Heidi Glaus
St. Louis (KSDK) -- Window shopping has become something of the past but in its hey day, the Famous-Barr displays were something to see. Charlie from Greenville, Illinois wanted to know what happened to the Christmas bears that used to be displayed at Famous-Barr. Heidi is giving us a trip down memory lane for the answer in this week's Hey Heidi! segment.
They are the windows people made special trips to see, displays that drew the attention of both young and old and behind some of the best was a man with a kids imagination.
"My first job, really official job, was at Famous-Barr when I was only 20 years old an I worked for $27 and 50-cents a week," Sam Clark points out.
Clark worked his way up over the years, left Famous-Barr for awhile to work at Saks Fifth Avenue, and then was wooed back by Famous-Barr where he eventually became the display director, a position he held for 30 years.
"I had 22 windows downtown alone, 110 windows all together in all stores," Clark says.
It was a big job and Christmas was crunch time.
"So my first Christmas I went all out and it was very successful," Clark adds.
What you might not realize is just how much time and effort went into each window.
"I dreamt it up the day before we just finished the windows," Clark explains.
That means Christmas was darn near a year-long project, not to mention the thought that had to go into the merchandise featured in the window.
"But I always had a theme. We did Raggedy Ann Christmas. We had Paddington Bear theme that of course, tied in to another children's book," Clark says.
Not only did he have to be creative, but he also had to have a sense of humor.
"I loved little funny things going on like little mice running around with Santa Claus hats on. Anything where the little kids would go goo-goo you know and that to me was very, very important," Clark adds.
And as for those bears, well they were stored with the rest of the props in a warehouse near Vandeventer Avenue and Chouteau Avenue.
"It burned! So the bears, the bears went up in smoke like everything else did," Clark explains.
The fire was after Mr. Clark retired from Famous-Barr. The good news is you can still see some of his creativity at work, only these days it's a the Campbell House Museum, a place with less windows, but even more history.
KSDK