Attention Kmart shoppers

As a new associate-in-training at Lewiston’s Kmart, Kay Williams takes the merchandise people leave at the cash registers when they change their minds at the last minute, and she puts it back on the shelves.

She also wanders the aisles and returns items to where they belong if customers have removed them from displays and not put them back in the right spot.

It’s unlikely that Williams, who was hired in October, will be promoted. The store closes Dec. 15 as part of a nationwide downsizing the parent company of Sears and Kmart is doing as it seeks a sustainable financial model after emerging from bankruptcy.

But the role Williams is playing in the store’s final days is greater than her job title suggests.

Williams was one of the store’s first employees when it opened in 1974. Now she is serving as an unofficial advocate for the Lewiston Kmart, making sure the public understands the important role it has played as an employer and place to buy affordable clothing and housewares.

“This has been a good family store,” she said. “(The employees) take good care of each other.”

At 77 years old, she works because of the joy she finds in interacting with people, not because she has to.

Back in 1974, when she first applied at Kmart, her circumstances were much different. She was a single mother of three children.

She helped stock the shelves before the store opened. Then she stayed on to cook and help in a delicatessen where she made sandwiches and salads for a friendly lunch crowd of mostly other working people.

The deli was later moved and then closed altogether in one of the many remodels of the store over the years.

Williams remembers other services that are no longer offered at the store, like car repair in a garage that was once on the north side of the store.

What stands out to Williams the most, though, is how she was treated when she experienced one of the scariest episodes in her life early in her days as a Kmart employee.

Her home didn’t have air conditioning, so she and her three children decided to camp in their backyard one hot summer night to stay cool. That choice saved their lives.

While they were sleeping, Williams’ house exploded and burned down, claiming all of their possessions.

The next day, Williams arrived at work on time. Despite her punctuality, her co-workers could tell immediately something was wrong. Instead of a uniform, she was wearing her sister’s clothing, which was several sizes too big.

Once she shared what happened, they took her around the store to pick out free clothes for her children and her.

A few days later, the employees held a shower and gave her household items such as sheets and small appliances.

“It was so sweet of them, because they all contributed,” she said.

They were supportive during an investigation of the explosion, which found it had been caused by her furnace and glue fumes from her son’s model airplane project. Understanding that made it easier for her family to sleep at night and helped them put the explosion behind them.

Still, Williams needed a break from Lewiston and moved to the Tri-Cities a year or two after going to work for Kmart. It was the first of a number of places she lived before returning to Lewiston about 20 years ago.

Over the years, she has held positions with employers such as Head Start and Sodexo, which does food service at Lewis-Clark State College.

Regardless of where she worked, she has always carried a fondness for Kmart and now wishes she would have returned sooner.

The customers she talks to are friendly. Many are doing their Christmas shopping early, taking advantage of low prices at the going-out-of-business sale.

But, Williams said, that emotion is mixed with disappointment about losing Kmart so soon after places such as Lewiston’s Shopko and Clarkston’s Bi-Mart shut down.

“It breaks my heart,” she said. “We have lost too many businesses in this valley recently. ...Where are we supposed to shop?”

And she worries about what the dozens of employees who work at the store will do next.

“I’m sorry to see my store go,” she said.

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.