'She is amazing': Family, friends pour out love for longtime OKC liquor store owner

Aug. 1—The sun poured in through the windows at the Linwood Package Store on June 18, its rays bouncing off glass bottles lining the shelves.

A crowd of family members and friends gathered in the store — smiling, laughing, talking and taking pictures with Imogene Naifeh, owner of the store.

They were celebrating her 95th birthday.

The crowd made its way to the front of the room, near the register where Naifeh has rung up sales of whiskey, bourbon, beer and wine for more than 50 years. Then they hugged the white-haired family matriarch.

"Thank you so much, thank you," she tells them. "God bless you."

Few people arrived at the store near downtown Oklahoma City that Friday morning to buy liquor. Instead, they came to pour out their hearts for Imogene.

"She's loved by everyone," said granddaughter Corie Naifeh, 20. "Everyone she's ever met just adores her. She's so kind and caring and sweet. 'God bless you, Honey' — that's her phrase.

"I hope one day I'm just like her."

'She worked basically every day'

Imogene was born June 18, 1926, in Depew, where she went to school during her early years. Her family moved to Oklahoma City when she was going into the 7th grade.

Naifeh's brothers opened the American Candy Co. in 1945. In 1954, it became the American Mutual Co. department store. While her brothers ran the store, Imogene worked in the shoe department at John A. Brown, another department store.

She married her husband, Richard Naifeh, in 1959. He'd been in the insurance business, but after Oklahoma repealed prohibition, the couple wanted to try something new. So in 1968, they purchased the liquor store.

"It was the beginning of liquor then," Imogene Naifeh said. "Good Lord, that was a lot of years ago."

Richard Naifeh died after an illness in 1974. And Imogene, with two young children to care for, kept the store open.

"She worked every day, basically," said her son, Rick Naifeh. "She would be here from morning until 10, when the store closed, so she'd get home at 10:30 at night. It was some long days, but she worked it."

She's hardly missed a day of work. She said she had only missed three days of work in more than 50 years before having to take some time away for the coronavirus pandemic. One of those days was for Richard's funeral.

During the pandemic, the store was closed for three weeks. To her, that was too much.

"She said, 'I'm not sitting in this house by myself and dying alone. I'm going back to work,'" Rick Naifeh said. "She's been here every day since."

"I enjoy working," Imogene said. "It's a real good feeling. Getting up every morning is a blessing. And you dress and you get going, and it keeps that brain working."

She enjoys seeing people — often return customers — and talking with them.

"They become part of you," she said of her customers. "You see them every day, and you miss them when they disappear for a while."

Naifeh sometimes passes out sandwiches to homeless customers who frequent the store.

"There was a guy named Steve who came in, and he only had $3 or $4 in his pocket, and he wanted to get a bottle. But he was hungry," Rick Naifeh said. "So she allowed him to buy the bottle, but then she made him a sandwich."

"You've got to remember, some of them have a problem," Imogene Naifeh said. "You do feel for them."

Imogene's family members respect her for this reason. Even though she's a diminutive figure — barely above four feet tall — they say she has a larger-than-life personality.

And they say they look up to her, even though their eyes may be pointed downward.

"She is amazing, and she has more drive than anyone I've ever met," Corie Naifeh said. "She gets up earlier than anyone I know, and she's just the hardest worker. It's unreal watching her."

'It's part of my life'

Imogene has lived in Oklahoma for most of her 95 years, and she's a longtime member of the St. Elijah Orthodox Christian Church.

"It's part of my life," she said.

So is the church's pastor — the Rev. John Salem — who came to the liquor store to pray over Imogene and lead the crowd in singing "God Grant You Many Years."

"Life is precious, and she really takes every day — every day — to its fullest," Salem said. "She checks in on everybody, and everybody in the community checks on her. She's there for everybody. Whatever she's got, she paid forward many times."

Keeping it in the family

Corie Naifeh said she plans to buy her first drink from her grandmother when the time comes, but she's not yet sure what she'll pick.

"I think she'll point me in the right direction," Corie Naifeh said. "She knows a lot about it."

Or does she?

"Me? I don't drink at all," Imogene Naifeh said. "I don't care for it. Oh, no. My son would like to see me drink a little red wine, but I don't even do that. I sell it, but I don't drink it."

Her son contends that, one New Year's Eve, the family had some bubbly alcoholic beverages with Imogene. But that was years ago.

So what happens when people ask for drink recommendations?

"I put on a good show," Imogene Naifeh said. "I act like I know, but I don't. They ask me about the wines, I'll come up with an answer. I hope it's right."

She still gets up and goes to work in the mornings — only after she completes her morning routine, that is.

She says that's the key to a long and happy life.

"God's been good to me," she said. "Every day is a blessing. For every door that closes, God opens one. I'm blessed. Every morning, I thank God for another day."

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