Customers Remember Beloved Brookline Candy Store Owner
BROOKLINE (CBS) -- Ethel Weiss loved her customers. Now, many are stopping by the candy store she ran for 76 years to show how much they loved her.
"She was just this wonderful old lady who really, really shared her passion for what she was doing. All her toys spoke about the love that she has for her kids," said customer Loubens Bruno.
The beloved owner of Irving's Toy & Card Shop on Harvard Street in Brookline passed away at the age of 101 Thursday. On Sunday, the window of her small shop, which she opened with her husband Irving at the end of the Great Depression, was covered with sticky notes from customers who offered their condolences and shared their memories of Weiss.
One note read, "The joy of walking down Harvard St. was stopping to see Ethel!"
"It was as just as pure and as pure and as simple as could be," said customer and neighbor Steve Strassman. "She just loved the kids and she loved running the store."
A CBS News story profiled Weiss three months ago. She told CBS News's Steve Hartman then that she didn't want to retire, because she didn't want to disappoint people by closing the store.
"There's no one to take it over," she said. "And I don't want it to fall apart at the seams."
Weiss lived next door, and made the 25-foot walk from her front door to the shop most mornings for three-quarters of a century.
Since her passing, hundreds have come to say "hi" one final time.
"She was one of a kind. This store was one of a kind. You don't see it anymore… now it's corporations or altogether different. It was special," said another customer.
"She was nice and fair and very kind about everything," said 10-year-old customer Rosalind Livine.
"I haven't known anybody that touched me the way has touched my heart," said Mary Graves, Ethel's caretaker of six months.
A note on the door Sunday read, "Thank you for all the beautiful flowers left in our mother's memory. In an effort to preserve their beauty, we have brought them inside to be enjoyed by all our friends and family."
Ethel's daughter said doing the best you can was the most important thing for her mother. "You live by the Golden Rule and you're kind to people," said Janice White.
Ethel's children tell WBZ they aren't yet sure what will happen to the store.
WBZ-TV's Julie Loncich contributed to this report
