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Harrisburg mourns one of its leading retailers

She was only 5-foot-2, but Mary Jane Tuttle was a giant in the Harrisburg business community.

Jane, as she was called, was the proprietor of Myron's, the woman's clothing boutique on Poplar Street that was a must stop for generations of Southern Illinois women. The family also owned stores in Marion, Vienna, Carmi and Carbondale.

Tuttle died Saturday, Sept. 17 at age 78.

She was the second generation to run the family business - her parents, Eli and Hannah (Thomas) Lasersohn, opened Myron's in 1933, the worst year of the Great Depression.

Tuttle was close to her parents and also close to the store, her daughter, Pam Pearson, said.

"She loved it," Pearson added. "It was her life."

Tuttle's life was not easy. Her young first husband, Eddie Seright, died from a heart attack at age 23, leaving Jane with 3-year-old and 1-year-old daughters. But she had a knack for fashion.

Small of stature and pencil thin, Tuttle was always perfectly turned out in classic styles and tailored clothes - but she also knew what worked well on her customers.

Her husband, Dr. Roger Lyons, said her buying trips to New York, St. Louis and Chicago would be not only to find unique pieces for her store, but to pick out specific outfits for specific customers.

"She really had a memory for ladies' sizes and styles," Lyons said. He told the story of a local man who came into Myron's to buy a present for his wife's birthday. Oh yes, Tuttle told him, his wife was a size 8 but she's narrower in the shoulders so we have to be careful.

Even women who never wore hats would frequent Myron's long counter, trying on her stylish assortment in front of the big mirror. On Saturdays, live models would pose in the front windows, wearing delectable clothes. For a time there were monthly fashion shows at the old Smugglers Restaurant.

Eli and Hannah, and then Jane, were supported in the retail business by Eli's brother, Jack Lasersohn, who was in the wholesale garment business in New York City. Tuttle once met designer, Oleg Cassini, on one of her buying trips out East.

Tuttle officially became the proprietor of Myron's in the early 1980s, Pearson said, buying the store from her mother, Hannah, after Eli died in 1979.

She closed the business in late 2004 and early 2005 after her husband of 23 years, Dr. Warren E. Tuttle, became ill and then died. She was sad to retire she told her daughter, and felt that Myron's had been a genuine asset to Harrisburg.

She sold the building at 7 E. Poplar St., which started out as a bank and today houses the Gypsy Moon Boutique.

Gypsy Moon owner Beth Moore has framed Myron's catalogs on the walls of her shop, and a stack of them on the counter. She found them inside the building after she bought it a couple years ago, and while she gave some to Tuttle's family, she mounted others to honor the building's rich retail history.

"Myron's was a landmark," Moore says. "And Jane was one of the nicest people, always smiling."

Last December, Moore held an event that in part paid homage to Myron's, with live models in the shop windows.

Visitation for Mary Jane Tuttle will be held 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, in the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church, West Poplar Street in Harrisburg, followed immediately by a service of Death and Resurrection. A community reception for all who knew her will be 2:30-5 p.m. Saturday in Morello's Banquet Room, on East Poplar Street.

For details, call Reed Funeral Chapel, at (618) 252-1711.