Longtime Hanceville Drug Company employee Ethelene Cone, center, greets well wishers Saturday at a retirement celebration for both Cone and pharmacist Eddie Burkart, who’s passing ownership of the store on to his son, pharmacist Ben Burkart.

HANCEVILLE — When she was 19 years old, Hanceville’s Ethelene Cone held a baby boy named Eddie Burkart — the newborn son of her boss, Carlie “C.T.” Burkart — in her arms.

That was more than 65 years ago.

Cone was a new employee at Burkart’s store, the Hanceville Drug Company, and was just beginning to learn how to work the drugstore’s now-iconic soda fountain.

She’d eventually expand her duties into other roles: stock clerk, ticket seller, pharmacy technician and more. But the soda fountain was where Burkart placed Cone to begin her training.

“The soda fountain was here when I started, of course, and that is where Mr. Burkart started me off. As I learned that, I also learned to wait on everybody here in the store,” she recalled. “There was a bus station here then, and I sold Greyhound bus tickets. I learned to do all the things there were to do in the store.”

Last week, Cone — who’s 85 now — finally retired from the job she started 65 years ago.

And standing beside Cone Saturday, at dual-purpose reception commemorating not one, but two retirements, was the other new retiree: pharmacist Eddie Burkart — the boy Cone had held only months after she’d first started working for his father. Eddie’s turning the store over to his 26 year-old son Ben, a recent graduate of the School of Pharmacy at Auburn.

For a small-town business, three generations of family ownership is usually a pretty reliable indicator that you’re looking at a local landmark — a place that’s served as a constant and comforting institution through decades of changing times and faces.

More remarkable is the employee whose constancy has given a single human perspective to all those changes. At the Hanceville Drug Company, that perspective belongs to Cone. She’s seen the world change around the store, while seeing the store itself change remarkably little. The soda fountain’s still there, staffed by people who — like Cone — still know how to jerk a soda.

For anyone who’s known Cone over the course of her long and happy career behind the counter at Hanceville Drug — one of Cullman County’s oldest continuously operating businesses — it’s hard to separate the store from the woman.

“It’s just been a happy journey for me,” said Cone. “I’ve been very blessed, and the Burkarts have been a blessing. They’ve been so good to me, or maybe just put up with me — I’m still not sure which!”

Cone recalls her earliest days at the store with a clarity and precision that evades most people of any age.

“I worked after school and on the weekends until I graduated Hanceville High School in 1949,” she said. “I graduated on the 27th of May of ‘49; I got married on the 27th of May of 1950. My husband Earl and I will have been married 67 years this May. He’s 93. Our son, Mike, is 60. We’ve been happy. We’ve been blessed.

“[The store] hasn’t changed much inside. The walls are a different color; the corner area where we used to sell bus tickets is now a lawyer’s office. [Back then] we opened at 7 in the morning and closed at 8 at night. On Saturday we closed at 10 at night, because there was a late movie and then people would come here. I think it’s still a really active place today.”

It certainly was active on Saturday. Hundreds of well wishers turned out at the store to congratulate both Eddie and Ethelene, and to wish Ben Burkart a long and happy career as the store’s third-generation owner.

Ethelene stood the whole time, graciously greeting everyone who waited in line to speak with her. Chalk it up to a work ethic she cultivated over the course of decades on the job.

“I’m not used to sitting down,” she said. “When I first started, Mr. Burkart said, ‘If you don’t have a customer, be busy doing something else: dusting, cleaning, putting up stock.’ That was just the way I was trained. Young people — they don’t do that any more. If they don’t have a customer…they sit down.”

In keeping with that ethic, Cone’s retirement will likely be a “soft” one: she’s already been called back to help out since officially leaving her position early last week.

“It’s the first of the month, and it’s a busy time,” she explained. “And my pharmacy tech license is good through the end of the year!”

As for 65 year-old Eddie? He’s placing his full confidence in his son, and in another generation of Burkart ownership.

“I’m actually retiring,” Eddie said with good-natured confidence. “It’s Ben’s store now. I’ll fill in occasionally — if I’m around. But we’re going to travel. There are a lot of things we want to do.

“Ethelene is just like family. She’s been around this store longer than I have,” said Burkart.

“She’s a wonderful person; she’s a great worker. She’s just a part of this store. People love her, and she’s just been wonderful to be around.”