Fire guts NC business, reveals story of couple who built it
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Minnie Ervin sat quietly inside a car Wednesday morning watching as Winston-Salem firefighters made sure that the fire that had just destroyed a lifetime of work had been extinguished.
Her grown children, Rosa Ervin Adams and Jakay Ervin Jr., stood nearby waiting on an insurance adjuster and greeting well-wishers. “Everybody got out OK,” Ervin Adams said to a friend who had called her.
The family business, Ervin’s Beauty Services on Patterson Avenue, had been in place since 1976 when Minnie and Jakay Sr. converted by hand an old gas station into a community icon — a thriving beauty-supply business/hair salon where generations of women, including the late Dr. Maya Angelou and longtime Councilwoman Vivian Burke, came to have their hair done.
The business had been gutted by fire; it was an economic setback and a devastating loss.
But within minutes of listening to Minnie Ervin speak, it became apparent that the story of Ervin’s Beauty Services is much deeper than structure fire. It’s really a love story about the life Minnie and Jakay Ervin shared for 65 years.
“He drew up the plans himself and built a lot of it with his own two hands,” Minnie Ervin said. “He’s worth talking about. I love talking about him.”
A TRUE FAMILY BUSINESS
To understand fully the story of Ervin’s Beauty Services, it’s necessary to know something about Minnie and Jakay Ervin Sr.
They met when Jakay was a student at Winston-Salem Teachers College. Minnie Ervin was riding on a homecoming float; she was Miss Lemay Beauty College. “He told a friend, ‘I have to meet her,’” Minnie Ervin said.
And he did.
Jakay Ervin Sr. was a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, serving during the Korean War era. He’d dropped out of high school, got drafted and badly hurt his knee when a Jeep flipped over during training. The injury prevented him from being sent to Korea.
That military experience, as it can, sharpened a young man’s focus. So he went back to high school as soon as he mustered out. After that, it was on to Winston-Salem State — while working a fulltime job at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco — for his bachelor’s in 1958 and N.C. A&T State University for graduate school.
He and Minnie married in 1955; Jakay Ervin Sr. settled into a job with the U.S. Postal Service and Minnie Ervin worked as a hairdresser. A family followed.
Opportunity knocked in the mid-’70s when that old gas station on Patterson Avenue went up for sale, and the Ervins answered it together — all four of them.
“I laid that brick up there,” said Jakay Ervin Jr., pointing to the foundation just visible behind a pile of burned, wet pink insulation.
Ervin Adams wasn’t exempt, either. She was expected to do her share.
“It was more than growing up there,” said Ervin Adams. “Daddy believed in hard work. I helped tear up the old flooring. I was old enough to know that maybe I should have run off to grandma’s house.”
Ervin Adams was joking, of course. But she and her brother learned the value of an honest day’s work and trusting their faith. They got that by watching the partnership burgeon between their parents.
“I love (the business),” Minnie Ervin said while watching firefighters put away their gear. “I love people. I’ve loved coming to work for more than 50 years.”
LONG, DIFFICULT YEAR
Minnie Ervin was on her way to the shop about 8:30 a.m. when she learned that the building was burning.
An employee had been working with an early-bird customer when they heard a loud pop and smelled smoke — a telltale sign of an electrical short. The fire likely started in or near the salon; the Ervins had closed the beauty-supply end of the business a few years back.
It burned fast, and required several trucks and more than a dozen firefighters to knock down.
“We were getting ready to remodel and lease part of the building,” Minnie Ervin said.
It’s been a long, difficult year for the Ervin family. COVID-19 restrictions took a bite out of the business. That hurt, but it was a mere annoyance compared to the loss of Jakay Ervin Sr. who died on New Year’s Day.
He was 89 and had enjoyed a full, rich and love-filled life. He was a proud Marine, featured in a 2019 story about local veterans, and a talented carpenter. “He built part of our house,” Minnie Ervin said. “We have a cathedral ceiling and he hung that first beam by himself.”
Wednesday’s fire destroyed photographs and irreplaceable keepsakes. The loss was as profound as it was unexpected.
It’s not easy to speak clearly in the immediate aftermath of such a physical tragedy. Onlookers and a small stream of friends and acquaintances drifted by as the news spread.
But the Ervins handled it all with grace. They haven’t decided yet whether to rebuild; it’s far too early to make that decision.
They were thankful that no one was hurt, and Minnie Ervin grateful for a temporary distraction of talking about her husband.
“It has been a hard year,” she said. “He was such an awesome man. So talented and so smart.”
A building burned Wednesday morning. But the fire, bad as it was, could not destroy the story of the people who’d built it.
