Unafraid of change, Poplar Bluff woman continues to celebrate new adventures

Dola Lack of Poplar Bluff celebrates each birthday with zeal and she marked another milestone on her 78th birthday Friday by helping move Letassy Pharmacy to Dille’s Discount Pharmacy.

She has worked at Letassy since it opened, and doesn’t have any plans to retire now.

A woman who didn’t let her 75th birthday keep her from trying out a zip line drop, Lack always lives her life according to her own schedule.

Dola Lack talks about the various historical items Bud Letassy collected and displayed at the pharmacy. DAR/Paul Davis

“I got married the day I was 16. It has been a wonderful life,” Lack said.

She married Jack, who was from a family of 14, which she called a “house full of kids.” They had known each other for a long time since their families were friends.

They raised four children: two daughters and two sons.

Dola Lack stands by the wooden files for medicines at Letassy Pharmacy.DAR/Paul DAvis

Marrying young, Lack didn’t finish high school. When she decided to go to work, she was concerned about finding a job.

Lack feels fortunate Bernard ‘Bud’ Letassy “gave me a chance,” she said. Lack began working for Letassy in the 1970s, when he was a pharmacist at Gil’s Pills. Letassy worked in community pharmacies until 1981, when he opened his own business, Letassy Pharmacy.

“I worked there two years,” she said, explaining she moved with Letassy when he opened his own pharmacy on Pine Boulevard across from Sacred Heart Catholic Church. She made the next move in 1981, when he moved to 1014 W. Pine Blvd.

Lack recalls, “Bud would say, ‘you are good with customers. You are always here.’”

One of her primary jobs was taking care of customers. When people would ask, “Dola, what is taking Bud so long,” she’d chat with them and relieve their stress.

“I always told him I met so many wonderful people,” she said.

One of them is Debbie Yount, who started working at Letassy when she was 15. Today, Yount is a pharmacist.

When Lack started working at the pharmacy, she would type the labels, tear them off and place them on the bottles. She also counted the pills. Today, the labels are printed by a computer.

She learned to use the old-style button cash register, that was nothing like a computer. She recalls Bud saying for two years he wasn’t getting computers.

One year, returning from vacation, he told Lack, “I guess we are going to get a computer.”

They received two weeks training and made calls to the computer company for help.

“Bud could learn anything,” she said. “He was easy to work for. He worked seven days a week. He did so much for everyone. I love my job. We worked nine hours a day; just me and him.”

Letassy wanted to work until he was 90 and he did, Lack remembers. He died Sept. 1, 2018.

While she worked long hours for years, Lack made time for fun. When her husband was alive, they enjoyed playing cards and fishing. “We just had a good time,” she said.

One of her leisure activities was bowling and Letassy sponsored the team. She still plays golf at Westwood Country Club.

Having open heart surgery has not slowed her down. She is not afraid of trying something different.

Her daughter, who lives in North Carolina, was searching among friends for someone to zip line with her. No one would volunteer, so Lack called and offered to go with her.

“Ain’t no way you would zip line,” her daughter said.

Smiling, Lack said she replied to her daughter, “don’t tell your brother.”

A friend took Lack to Gatlinburg, Tenn., to meet her daughter to zip line.

She describes it as a “drop 50 feet straight down. It was going out of my comfort zone but it was an experience.”

She hopes to continue working part-time at Dille’s, if she can zip through the computer training, “I want to keep busy.”