Cronin sisters kept card file on patrons

The women who patronized the former Cronin Department store were catered to by the late Elizabeth and Virginia Cronin in a way they may not have realized. The sisters kept a card file on their regulars recording their bra, girdle and shoes sizes, among other statistics in order to help them meet their customer needs. This and many other fading memories of the store that thrived in downtown Marshall since 1851 until circa 1988 are shared in a front page story about former Cronin Department Store owner, Phil Weber, now 90 years old. Weber wanted to chronicle his stories of the sisters and the Cronin building for the first time in The Chronicle to help preserve the history with words, while the building's structural history changes with renovations underway now.