Fashion found Betty Aronson

RALEIGH -- More than 50 years ago, a ninth-grade dropout working at a women's clothing shop caught the eye of the store's merchandising manager.

He liked her, and she liked him back.

It turns out she had an impeccable eye for fashion, catching on quickly after they opened their own store in North Hills, where he taught her the ropes of being a buyer.

Betty Aronson was a quintessential fashion plate. Her hair was always done, her makeup never smudged as she tracked the latest trends and set a few herself as personnel manager and buyer for accessories and jewelry -- among other things -- at Ronsons in the old North Hills shopping center.

Betty Kivett Aronson died in July of a heart attack. She was 82.

Aronson was born in Statesville in 1926. Like many children of the Depression, she dropped out of school to go to work and help support her family.

Eventually, she made her way east and found a job as a sales associate at Tobias, a clothing store in High Point. There she met the store's merchandising manager, Arnold Aronson, who made an effort to stay in touch with the slender, blonde fashionista after she changed jobs.

They married in 1952.

In 1963, the Aronsons moved to Raleigh. A new strip shopping center had opened in a distant Raleigh enclave called North Hills. It was a modest L-shaped center that developers were taking a gamble on. In that era, shoppers headed to downtown Raleigh or Cameron Village. North Hills, now dubbed "Midtown," was considered way out yonder in the country, so much so that merchants closer to the heart of Raleigh rebuffed attempts to lure them there.

Hurting for retailers, the developer of North Hills turned to High Point to woo Arnold Aronson. His reputation as a skillful merchant had spread to Raleigh.

Might he consider opening a store in this newfangled North Hills complex?

The Aronsons agreed, plunging their life savings into opening Ronsons, a women's clothing store that offered moderate to more upscale wardrobes, selling everything from bras to prom gowns, until discount chains squeezed it out of business in 1992.

Joyce Rambeau went to work at Ronsons when she was 19, becoming Betty Aronson's protegee as she learned from her how to use a discerning eye to buy jewelry, accessories, lingerie and sportswear.

It was Aronson who escorted Rambeau on her first visit to New York City for a buying trip. They made appointments to view merchandise at manufacturers up and down Seventh Avenue and Broadway, a heady experience for a girl from Coats.

"She was my idol," Rambeau said. "She was gorgeous. She knew the market backwards and forwards. I wanted to mimic her."

Aronson, wearing clothes from the store, always modeled the latest style. Accessorized head to toe, Mrs. A -- as her employees called her -- was immaculately groomed with scarf, shoes and matching handbag.

Style for all

The store dressed teachers and secretaries, but in its exclusive Collector's Corner, it also catered to an upscale clientele that followed the latest fashions.

Adlene Matthews did alterations at Ronsons for 27 years. She received an employee discount, but that wasn't much help when her daughter, Brenda, set her sights on a designer outfit in the Collector's Corner.

Matthews' daughter, now Brenda Massengill, fell in love with a baby blue dress and matching coat with fur collar, size 8. Every weekend, she'd come home from college and go straight to the store to visit her mother -- and the dress, which cost $370 in 1973.

One day, the dress disappeared. Massengill was heartbroken. "Mother, someone bought my dress!" she said.

That someone was Mrs. A, also a size 8, who planned to wear it to a party.

Weeks passed; Christmas arrived. An oversize Ronsons box waited beneath the Matthews' tree.

Massengill opened it and discovered the outfit. Inside, there was a note from Mrs. A: "I could never have worn this outfit knowing how bad you wanted it. Merry Christmas."

To this day, Massengill said she has never been as stunned as she was that Christmas morning.

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Betty Aronson is survived by her son and daughter-in-law and five grandchildren.

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