Oral History: Bill Eames — October, 2004

Summary:

Bill Eames was interviewed by Julie Sullivan in October, 2004. Bill was only two years out of pharmacy school when he and his wife Karin opened Acalanes Pharmacy in Lafayette in 1959. There were three other pharmacies operating in town at that time, but due to Bill’s talents and hard work—he worked all the holidays for 25 years—the business thrived. Five years after opening this store Mr. Eames purchased the first of 80 drugstores that would become the Bill’s Drugs chain, which was itself bought by Long’s Drugs in 1993.

Oral History:

Hard work and vision guided Bill Eames to become a pharmacist, but it took a series of lucky coincidences to bring him to Lafayette.

Bill, a native of Chico, California, worked part time at a pharmacy from age 16. After graduating from Idaho State University School of Pharmacy in 1957, Bill took a job as a pharmacist at Brookside Hospital in San Pablo. When he finished his day shift at Brookside, he would often fill in at Miller’s Service Pharmacy about a half mile away. He’d work from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Many Saturdays also found Bill working in the store. When he wasn’t at Miller’s, Bill could also be found at Richmond Hospital Pharmacy several nights a week, since their pharmacy stayed open until 11:00 p.m. “At that time,” Bill explains, “pharmacists would relieve single store owners in the afternoons or evenings, so the owner could get out of his store.”

While he was at Brookside, two men entered his life, Dr. Manuel Barbosa and Wilson Miller, the owner of Miller’s Pharmacy. Dr. Barbosa said if Bill ever wanted to buy a drug store, he would help with the financing. Miller was also encouraging Bill to open a store of his own. Bill began actively looking for a store to purchase, and through the McKesson Drug company he got an introduction to Ed Louis, president of the Louis supermarket chain. Bill had a location in mind in a shopping center under construction on Ygnacio Valley Road past John Muir Hospital.

He met Ed Louis at his office and asked what Ed thought of the location. Ed told him to forget Ygnacio Valley Road and go to Lafayette, where Ed lived. Ed promised to check into a development under construction near his grocery there.

At the time, there were three other drug stores operating in Lafayette. “Richards’ Drug was run by Doc and his wife, who came out from Berkeley,” Bill says. “They were both pharmacists. The location of their store is the fly fishing shop next to the World Savings (now Wachovia) driveway. The second store was Lafayette Pharmacy, owned by Mort Sparling. Mort’s store was where Starbuck’s coffee is now. It was supposedly the second pharmacy in Lafayette. Mort was known for the 5-cent cup of coffee and for years had a very active soda fountain. Mort sold the store in the mid-60’s. Then it was sold again to Fred Loomis, who opened Guy’s Drugs in the Bruzzone Center. Fred was the son-in-law of Guy Shaffer of Guy’s Drugs of Oakland. Bruce was the pharmacist at Guy’s from the mid-60’s until he became a partner with Fred Loomis in the 80’s. Fred Loomis sold out to Bruce in the early 90’s, and Bruce ran the store until he sold to Safeway around 2000.

“The third store in Lafayette in 1959 was Valley Pharmacy. This was Ted Murphey’s store, and when I came to town, Ted probably did more prescription filling than any other store in town. I bought Ted’s store out and moved it into my store in 1963,” Bill explains. “For a very short time there was a fourth pharmacy on Dewing Avenue, which basically filled prescriptions for rest homes. It was located in Dr. Gerow’s new building behind his original office on Dewing. This store was only there a few years before it was closed.”

Ed Louis provided Bill an introduction to the developer of a new shopping center. “The next thing I knew I’d signed a lease for a building at 3637 Mt. Diablo Boulevard,” Bill says with a chuckle. “My wife, Karin, and I were to put up half the financing, and Wilson Miller and Dr. Barbosa would split the other half. The only problem was that I didn’t have my half.” Bill contributed his Buick as a delivery car, the refrigerator from his apartment, his typewriter and several of his textbooks from pharmacy school. His father, Henry, a cabinet maker, donated his labor to build all the pharmacy fixtures. Along with his savings and a loan from his partners, Bill was able to come up with his share.

In March, 1959, Acalanes Pharmacy opened on Mt. Diablo Boulevard where Round Table Pizza is today. Bill remembers the light fixtures didn’t arrive on time. “We opened with light bulbs hanging from the troughs where the fixtures were to be set.”

Acalanes pharmacy had 2,700 square feet, “a big store for an independent at that time,” Bill says proudly. “We had a corner location, but we were still 600-800 feet away from the Louis supermarket. I was told it would take the next year to develop the land between us, so I paid extra to have windows put down the side of my building and a second entrance on the side to make it easier for people doing their grocery shopping to come in. The idea was for customers to park between the two stores.

“Looking at a map, I saw Rancho Acalanes was the name of the area’s original land grant as well as the high school,” Bill says. “I decided on Acalanes since it was already familiar, and it would take a pharmacy with a name beginning with ‘Ab’ to get before mine in the phone book.

“Karin and I rented part of a fourplex on Bickerstaff directly behind the store,” he says. Karin, who was completing her last year in pharmacy school at the University of California, would bring him lunch at the store, and dinner would be after 9:00 p.m. when the pharmacy closed. “In the first year running Acalanes Pharmacy, I had a total of three days off. We ran the store from 9:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Saturday, and from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday.

“At first, we had minimum merchandise. McKesson Drug wouldn’t give me any credit. I opened with one clerk, Verna Kirk, who was the cosmetic sales lady. Kodak wouldn’t open an account for me, because I was too new, so I had Bennett Photo do my photo finishing and bought supplies from them.

“Business started off very well, since mine was the only drug store in Lafayette open later than 7:00 p.m. and on Sunday, and we went out of our way to make deliveries. I also did a lot of night calls. I gave all the local physicians my home phone number and told them if they needed a prescription at night to give me a call, and I’d go back to the store. Dr. John Moore, Dr. Cy Callister, Dr. Ken Caldwell and Dr. Sheldon Cook really helped tell all the new people coming to Lafayette about me and my store’s extended hours.

“I still remember one of the first prescriptions I filled on our first day in business. It was for Milk of Bismuth and paregoric, which was used for diarrhea in those days. I had Milk of Bismuth but did not have any paregoric. I bought the paregoric from Valley Pharmacy across the street, so I could fill the prescription.”

At first, Bill had to buy small amounts of drugs from other pharmacies around town, but after several months he was able to build his stock and become self-sufficient. In the early days, Karin made many of the deliveries in the family car. Their first daughter was born in May, 1959. Karin graduated from the College of Pharmacy at Cal in June and took her state boards in July. “She was very busy finishing her pharmacy degree and caring for Cindy at the same time I was opening Acalanes Pharmacy,” Bill remembers. “Somehow, we pulled through it all, and starting in June, with Cindy in the back of the car, Karin would go out and make deliveries. Later in the year we were able to hire a high school student to handle deliveries after school.

“I will always remember the first Christmas when I was building the store, and Karin was a new mother and making deliveries. We never put up a Christmas tree until a day or so before Christmas. By that time the only tree we could get was all wilted and mainly dead.”

In 1960 the family moved to a larger home, and in 1961 their second daughter, Sharon, was born.

“All our holidays for the first twenty-five years or so were spent in Lafayette, since Acalanes Pharmacy was never closed one day, and I worked all the holidays,” Bill says. “As our daughters got older, they came in and helped ring the cash registers. I really enjoyed having all of us working in the store.

“Millie, a local coffee shop owner, and Don Thompson, the owner of the Cape Cod House, would always come in every Christmas to do their Christmas shopping. At that time many of the electric toys did not include batteries, and there were always flash and film sales. We usually opened from around 9:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. Thanksgiving was a fairly big day for us, for many people bought film, flashbulbs and batteries. We were normally open from around 10:00 a.m. until 1:00- 1:30 p.m.

“Volume in the store grew very rapidly. At the end of the first year we had a profit, and 1961 was even better. In 1962 an opportunity came up to move the store down away from Louis, to an adjacent piece of land where the old Penny Saver Market had been. It was owned by Mrs. Neal. The partners wanted me to stay where I was and take money out of the store. This led to a stalemate in the partnership, and I finally agreed to buy them out. I took over sole ownership of Acalanes Pharmacy in July, 1962.

“Mrs. Neal’s building needed major remodeling: cutting off the front, pushing it out the back to the property line, putting a parking lot in front,” Bill explains. “She said she would only remodel if she was sure I would remain her tenant. She loaned Karin and me the money to rebuild the building and gave us a 99-year lease on the land and building, with the provision that upon her death, Karin and I would buy it.”

With the move, Acalanes Pharmacy had a 5,000 square foot store with a partial basement, opportunities to expand, a good front parking lot, and for the first time in their lives, Karin and Bill were the sole owners. Several years later they expanded the store again, adding another 3,000 square feet, creating the biggest greeting card store in Lafayette. A third addition was made on the left side. This became a large cosmetic department on the ground level, and the second story, which was 3,500 square feet, in later years became the Bill’s Drugs corporate offices. Bill bought a rental property behind the store which was demolished in the 1990’s and turned into a parking lot and freight entrance. “Acalanes Pharmacy was one of the first of its type to install a conveyor system to move merchandise from the warehouse to the sales floor,” Bill says.

In 1964 when Bill began acquiring other area pharmacies, the decision was made to change the name of all the stores to Bill’s Pharmacy and then to Bill’s Drugs a few years later. “During the life of Bill’s Drugs, we acquired approximately eighty pharmacies,” Bill says. “Most of these were single, independent pharmacists who had opened their stores after World War II. They were reaching the time in life when they wanted to retire. Bill’s Drugs offered them a way to get cash out of the store, and if they wanted to continue working as pharmacists, to shorten their hours. This meant a lot to these people.”

The first pharmacy Bill’s Drugs acquired was Valley Drug, across the street from the Lafayette store. “George, their pharmacist, and Myrtle, one of the front-end clerks, came across and worked in my original Acalanes Pharmacy,” Bill says. “After I bought Frank De Lose’s store in Orinda, I purchased Wright’s in Orinda and rolled it into the Orinda store.

“In the early 1970’s, I started a letter-writing program to speed up the purchase of independent stores. All the pharmacists close to one of our stores received a form letter from me. I don’t know how many letters I’ve written over the years, but it must be several thousand. I’d stop by and take the pharmacist to dinner. By doing a good job of listening, I found out what his key selling points were. Many times it would take six months to a year after my first conversation with an owner until something was put together. Since we had only a two-page agreement, many times the selling pharmacist would not even take the form to his attorney to be read.”

In 1993, Bill found himself on the other end of the table when Bill’s Drugs was bought by Long’s Drugs. Although he sold the business, Bill retained ownership of the Lafayette building which is leased to Long’s. He maintains an office on the second floor, where his extensive collection of pharmacy memorabilia, including patent medicines, cameras and sundries fills several tall display cases.

In the ensuing years Bill has pursued numerous charitable and community service activities, including chairmanship of the John Muir Hospital Foundation and membership on the boards of the California Symphony and the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano Counties. While no longer actively practicing pharmacy, Bill hasn’t given up his interest in business. He has served on the boards of a number of community banks.

Bill, a member of Rotary for thirty-eight years, recently served as president of the Lafayette Club. He prides himself on his perfect attendance. “When I was doing volunteer work in the Ukraine, I was able to attend a Rotary meeting. I once got off a plane in Honolulu and took a cab to make up a Rotary meeting at the Royal Hawaiian with the Honolulu club, then took a cab back to the airport to fly to Maui,” he says with a chuckle. “I have thoroughly enjoyed not only the meetings but also the fellowship and the close friends I’ve made.”

He and Karin take an annual family vacation with their two daughters, sons-in-law and eight grandchildren, and Bill has traveled extensively around the world since his so-called retirement.

This interview is excerpted from Voices of Lafayette, by Julie Sullivan. This book is available for purchase in the History Room.