Minnie Ervin sat quietly inside a car Wednesday morning watching as Winston-Salem firefighters made sure that the fire that had just destroyed a lifetime of work had been extinguished.
Her grown children, Rosa Ervin Adams and Jakay Ervin Jr., stood nearby waiting on an insurance adjuster and greeting well-wishers. âEverybody got out OK,â Ervin Adams said to a friend who had called her.
The family business, Ervinâs Beauty Services on Patterson Avenue, had been in place since 1976 when Minnie and Jakay Sr. converted by hand an old gas station into a community icon â a thriving beauty-supply business/hair salon where generations of women, including the late Dr. Maya Angelou and longtime Councilwoman Vivian Burke, came to have their hair done.