For the Burlington woman who wanted to look like she shopped in Chicago or New York, Brinck’s clothing store satisfied that desire with wonderfully textured garments in classic lines and trendy colors. A shopper could count on Brinck’s to offer affordable designer brands that made women feel like a million dollars while living in the middle of the heartland.
Although Brinck’s, located at 217 Jefferson St., had a relatively short tenure in the long history of downtown Burlington, it developed a deep relationship with customers from its opening in the late 1970s until it closed in 1999.
The store’s location had been a home for women’s fashions for decades as Eklund’s Ready-to-Wear. Burlington native Marianna Brinck and her husband, Vern, purchased Eklund’s in 1977. Although Marianna Brinck initially kept the moniker Eklund’s (it had been around since the 1930s), she changed the name to Brinck’s about eighteen months later as she expanded her customer base and incorporated her own vision for the store. Vern Brinck’s family had had an established business in West Point that was called Brinck’s, and having a store called Brinck’s in Burlington was a way to carry on that tradition.
With the purchase of Eklund’s, Marianna Brinck brought with her a strong background in the business of fashion. In the early 1970s, she became a representative for Doncaster, an upscale women’s clothing retailer. Doncaster would ship trunks of clothing to Brinck via bus, and she would invite her friends to her home and take their orders.
One day, Tom Read and John Randolph, the owners of J.S. Schramm Co., paid a visit to Brinck, who told this author: “They asked me if I’d be interested in coming to work for them as a buyer.”
In those days, many women with children didn’t work outside the home, and there were six Brinck children, ranging in age from adolescence to young adulthood. So Brinck told them, “Well, you have to ask me in front of Vern,” she recalled to this author, laughing at the memory. “So they did, and we talked about it, and I decided to try it.”
Try it she did, and she found she liked it. Schramm’s owners “were very good to me. They certainly gave me a wonderful background for shopping the New York and Chicago markets.”
After about five years at Schramm’s, Brinck heard through the grapevine that Eklund was interested in selling his store, and she and her husband approached him about buying it. In a story in The Hawk Eye on Feb. 2, 1977, Eklund simply stated that he had sold his business to Brinck because “she was the right one to sell it to.”
Brinck told The Hawk Eye that she chose Eklund’s as an investment because of its location. “I’m very interested in Steamboat Mall (as Jefferson Street was called then) and downtown Burlington.” Although Brinck at one point contemplated moving the store to another building on Jefferson, she ultimately decided to keep it at 217, directly across from J.S. Schramm Co. She found that location to be advantageous because shoppers would walk from one to the other to see what struck their fancy. “Schramm’s had one concept, and I had another.”
Did you enjoy this excerpt from “Beloved Burlington: Featuring businesses you knew and loved?”
The book, which contains chapters on 10 other businesses and many historical photos, is available for $19.99 at Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St., Burlington, Iowa and by mail order. For details, click here.
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