Two Generations of Women Prosperous in Fort Worth

When times got tough for Fort Worth business owner Alyce Jones, help was always near.

Jones, a Fort Worth native, loves eyeglasses and opened Adair Eyewear 35 years ago.

"Some of the glasses I have are from Denmark, France [and] Italy," said Jones.

The last 16 years, her store, with 2,000 pairs of frames, has been located along West 7th Avenue near the UNT Health Sciences Center and not far from businesses owned by her sister, Dr. Marie Holliday.

"My sisters. We all mentor each other," said Jones.

"My sister Alice, who has the optical shop, and I probably talk a couple of times a day," said Holliday, sitting in her second-floor office in Sundance Square where her dental practice has been located for more than two decades.

When she's not seeing patients, you might find Holliday downstairs in her fragrance shop "Marie Antoinette." Or she may be around the corner talking to employees of her third business, "Flowers To Go."

"I always wanted to have my own business," said Holliday.

Jones and Holliday have a third sister who owns an Internet-based business in Carrollton. 

Both sisters attended college in Boston with original intentions to become lawyers. After graduating, they returned to the Fort Worth. But starting businesses in their hometown in the 1980s was not easy. 

"The people may have not been so receptive to me was more because I was young and a woman," said Holliday. "People had not been to female practitioners because there really weren't any."

Jones remembered some people targeted her.

"I did run into a lot of prejudice because I was a female and I was black," said Jones. "And the police would be standing in the office and they couldn't believe I would get 15 calls within the hour, screaming at me, derogatory names."

But the sisters relied on a family foundation to get them through the rough times.

"My mother was a counselor in the school district and my father was only a minister," said Jones. "[Their] morals are the values are embedded in all of us."

"One of his main statements that he used to always make 'Use every stumbling block as a steppingstone'," said Holliday.

Those values have been passed down to Jones' daughter Melanie, who owns Prim and Proper gifts and gift wrapping boutique next door to her mother's Adair Eyewear. Jones came back to Fort Worth after graduation from the University of Southern California and the Parsons School of Design.

Advice also pours freely between generations.

"With my mom the best advice that she's given me is do something that you love," said Melanie Jones. "And to do it well every single day and to really be passionate about it. Therefore when you have hard times you're able to get through them a little bit easier."

Alyce Jones said the advice comes from her daughter as well.

"She gives me great advice," said Alyce Jones. "Even though she's been in business a lot less time, because of her background at USC and Parsons School of Design, that has really, really helped me from a marketing standpoint or ideas or inventory for that matter. She's brought in lines that I wouldn't have known about that her age would really like so as to keep things fresh and young."

Melanie Jones said having a mother and two aunts who are entrepreneurs definitely gave her a picture of what's possible. And she passes that message on young girls she mentors.

"It touches your heart that young girls say, 'OK I know someone whose doing that,' and therefore I can do the same."