by Jacqueline Knirnschild
Alternating between working at her sewing machine, answering phone calls, hemming, pinning and hand-stitching clothing, attending to customers and assisting other seamstresses, Peggy Myles is a swirl of energy.
Her customers and employees affectionately call her “Ms. Peggy” and she is one of a handful of African American business owners in Oxford, Mississippi.
But Peggy’s Specialty Alterations on North Lamar is more than just a business – it is a community that has been welcoming all Oxford residents for the past 19 years.
From the women she hires, to the wall filled with greeting cards, drawings and photos from her customers, one can tell that Myles is a proponent of acceptance.
Not only does the wall display the plethora of people Myles has bonded with through the years, but also showcases the history of the shop and the story of a determined, self-made entrepreneur with an unfaltering positive attitude.
“I’ve never had a time in my life when I wasn’t working,” Myles said. In the mid-eighties, she was working at Rainbow Cleaners on Jackson Avenue, when a woman told Myles she should start her own business.
After her first attempt at open a shop on University Avenue failed, Myles went back to school, got a business degree and then spent over ten years doing alterations at home, making costumes on the set of several local movies and working for another seamstress.
These experiences, Myles said, taught her a lot more about working in customer service and ultimately paved the way for the opening of Peggy’s Specialty Alterations’ in 1998.
“Once you go into a home business it’s a lot more than just doing the alterations you have to deal with people; with situations,” she said.
Most of the time, Myles said, interactions with customers run smoothly but every once in a while, she will get a customer that puts her “on her toes” and is upset that his or her clothes aren’t ready in time.
No matter what goes wrong, however, Myles said she is always determined to have a great day. In fact, she said she’s been having a great day for 19 years now.
Myles normally starts her day at 6:30 in the morning by preparing a small breakfast for her and her husband and is then off to work all day until returning home about twelve hours later.
Despite the hard work, Myles said she loves her job and said she encourages young people to find a career that they are truly passionate about.
“To me, I feel like a painter or a sculptor because you’re sculpting people’s clothes to each body shape,” Myles said. “When you see that smile on their face that they like what they see in the mirror – it makes your day; you feel like you’ve accomplished what you’ve set out for.”
Another rewarding part of her work is the opportunity to get to know so many diverse peoples.
“I love to visit with everyone,” Myles said. “We have so many people coming in from different backgrounds and it’s always enjoyable to see where they’re from.”
Myles knows the precise details – dates, names, occupations, etc. – of every story that lies behind a keepsake on her wall.
The wall of memories originally began with a good friend of Myles who insisted on being her first customer.
“He said I’m going to be your first customer so we took a picture and he went home and got the frame and brought a hammer and put the picture up and said ‘I want a picture on the wall’,” Myles said.
One of Myles’s favorite postings is a white drawn-on piece of paper with a gold coin taped to it that was given to her by a the three-year-old son of one of her regular customers.
“That was powerful, you know, to give away your Chuck E. Cheese coin.” Myles said with a chuckle.
Another posting is a polaroid of her and Matthew McConaughey from when she worked on the set of the movie “A Time to Kill” in 1996. Myles described McConaughey as a “really nice young man”.
Meeting famous people, although, is exciting, Myles said, is not the real highlight of her work, which is getting to know the everyday lives and traditions of regular people.
“This is John Roberts,” Myles said as she pointed at a photograph of a baby boy. “I’ve known his mom and his grandmother and he was an autistic baby but he was just so vibrant and so fun – every time you see him he’s got a big smile on his face.”
Another greeting card includes a photo of a young girl dressed in fancy, frilly, dance-recital wear, whose parents send Myles a photo every year.
“This little girl started coming in when she was in a stroller,” Myles said. “Now she’s ten or eleven this year.”
Myles is not only well-acquainted with her customers, but also cherishes her employees – most of which she knew before hiring.
“We have lots of fun, we laugh all of the time,” Myles said. “Everyone gets along great and helps everyone else.”
In the springtime, Myles said, the ten or so women will get together and grill out back. On Mother’s Day, they usually lock up the shop and go out to eat.
Myles ‘assistant’ Kasey “Sunshine” Taylor, a senior at Oxford High, is the niece of one of Myles’s friends from church.
Taylor, who earned the nickname “Sunshine” from a previous teacher for her unwavering smile, has been working at Peggy’s since her freshman year.
“I like working with Ms. Peggy,” Taylor said. “She’s like a second mother to me.”
Puspa Owitigala, moved to Oxford from Sri Lanka eight years ago and was on the hunt for a job when she discovered Peggy’s.
Owitigala said she was chatting with a girl at the bus stop and mentioned she needed work and the girl told her Peggy’s had some vacancies.
At the time, Owitigala did not know how to sew but Myles still hired her and taught her everything.
“I’m so lucky to work for Ms. Peggy,” Owitigala said. “Ms. Peggy taught me how to do the alterations and now I can catch everything.”
Myles said she has worked with people from all over the world – Buddhists, Muslims and Baptists – and aims to promote a sense of acceptance in the workplace.
“We’re all God’s children,” Myles said. “It doesn’t matter where people came from, the important thing is that we all bond together as one.”
“Whatever one person believes in, that’s his or her beliefs,” Myles continues. “We don’t try to change each other; we try to accept each other.”
Even though Myles loves what she does, still hopes to retire one day soon.
“Yesterday, I wanted to retire today,” Myles said. “So now that today is here I put it off until next week.”
All joking aside, Myles said she would like to retire at a young enough age to still enjoy life and do all of the things that she’s never had the time to do.
To name a few, Myles wants to go hang-gliding, write a book, and visit Hawaii and Yellowstone National Park.