Finding a New Home for Nice Men’s Suits

Four years ago this month, my dad passed away, and I miss him every day. He was a sure and steady captain at the helm of our family ship, guiding us to be kind, do good works, and think positive thoughts.

As perhaps the most optimistic man on the planet, we joked that Dale Carnegie got the idea for the “Power of Positive Thinking” program from my dad, Raymond L. Murray. His glass was always more than half full, and every experience, even every meal, was “the best ever.”

Born in 1920, he came of age during the Great Depression when nothing in life was easy. His first job was “baling rags” in a woolen mill for 10 cents an hour. When World War II began, he served in the Army, landing in France during the Normandy Invasion, digging foxholes across Europe, and catching influenza in the snow during the Battle of the Bulge.

Returning to his hometown of Cleveland, Tennessee, after the war, he started back to work at the local woolen mill and clothing factory, went to night school, and signed up for design school in New York on the G.I. bill. After completing a degree at the American Gentleman School of Design in Manhattan, he began a long and successful career as a men’s clothing designer.

Soon after he died, I loaded up his clothing to go to the Salvation Army. Everything, that is, except his suits. At the time I couldn’t bear to part with the beautiful, hand-made suits that he loved. While his hobby was fishing — I still have his rods, reels, and tackle box — dressing up in nice clothes gave him great pleasure.

Certainly, his devotion to clothes related to the skills he gained in his career. In order to join the prestigious trade organization, the International Association of Clothing Designers — of which he served as president in the 1970s — he had to go into a factory with only his drafting tools and fabric and come out with a completed tailored suit, performing every step in the process himself.

Custom made for him by the designer at Hardwick Clothes, the firm from which he retired, his suits remained in my closet. Yes, I was sentimental, but I also wanted to keep them until I could find them a good home. Not only do fewer men wear suits to work these days, even fewer would fit my dad’s size 42 short.

Then this fall, I decided it was time. I remembered there was a clothes closet at Columbia Seminary. I didn’t know the details, but it occurred to me that my Presbyterian father would be happy for his suits to go to seminary students — the one group of people I could think of that still need suits in their work.

Asking around the neighborhood, I found that the clothes closet is at Mission Haven a block from the seminary. Staffed by volunteers, the clothes closet is open to members of the seminary community who can shop there for free during designated hours. To donate, simply hang clothes on a rack on the porch and leave your name and address in the mailbox for a receipt. Volunteers sort the clothes each day.

While the clothes closet is important, the main focus of Mission Haven is to provide short-term housing for missionaries who are studying at the seminary or who are in transition after retirement or at the end of their term.

In a very Presbyterian moment, I called the Mission Haven phone number and the woman who answered the phone was a friend of my parents from North Decatur Presbyterian Church. I knew instantly that I had found the right place for the suits.

And I found that Mission Haven is an excellent place to give good clothes that need a second life. My dad would be pleased.

To learn about Mission Haven, go to:

http://hodgespres.org/pw_missionhaven.htm