She probably didn’t plan it this way, but Alice Hebler has spent much of her life in downtown Vicksburg. This is the first of two stories abut the owner of Paper Plus, a Washington Street store.

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Today she’s Mayor of Washington Street but, even as a little girl, downtown Vicksburg was Alice Hebler’s playground, from the courthouse to The Valley and places in between.

Alice was born a McNamara, a middle child of nine belonging to Pat and Mary Ruth DeRossette McNamara. She grew up on Grove Street. Her running partner and closest friend, Lee Howell, lived only a few houses away. She was either at Lee’s, or Lee was at the McNamaras — or so their mothers thought, though both were probably elsewhere.

“We hung out in the courthouse,” Alice said. “That was our playground.” First they’d go see Henry Haas, tax assessor, who kept a chest of cold drinks under his desk. He’d give the girls a short Coke, they’d visit, and then it was to Buck Penley’s office (he had candy), and, “If court wasn’t in session, we’d play court. One of us would be the judge and bang the gavel and the other would scream and yell, ‘Guilty!’ The lady who ran the elevator really liked us, and she’d come and say, ‘Girls, hurry, hurry, run like hell — the sheriff is after you.’ He was looking for us because we were playing in the courtroom.”

Sometimes they went across the street to the Old Court House and climbed trees, because they couldn’t afford the quarter it cost to go inside, and Miss Eva Davis — or somebody — would run them off.

The girls were brave enough to walk all the way to The Valley, at the corner of Washington and South, and go upstairs to the employees’ lounge, “and sit there and drink our 6‑cent Cokes.” When someone questioned them on why they were there, Alice would say, “My mother works downstairs.”

“The worst thing we ever did, I guess,” Alice said, was picking roses out of the rose garden on Monroe Street, going home and putting them in the bathtub with a little water, then trampling them like grapes, making perfume.”

They poured out Mrs. Howell’s perfume and put their bathtub brand in the bottles to give her as a gift, “and we couldn’t understand why Mrs. Howell wasn’t happy with us.”

Then there was the time they ran away. “I don’t know why,” Alice said, “because I know my parents loved me.”

Regardless, she and Lee packed their little bags, climbed a tree at the Old Court House and waited there to be missed — for several hours, Alice thinks.

The girls waited — and waited — “and as the afternoon wore on, I looked at Lee and said I was hungry, that they had probably missed us enough, we had better go home,” Alice said. They had reasoned that the distraught parents were crying, but when they went home Alice remembers walking in and her mother, busy in the kitchen, said, “Help me set the table.”

“I had run away, and she didn’t even know it!” Alice said. “It was sad.”

Alice graduated from St. Al where she was homecoming queen in 1972, went to college for a year and became a Hinds dropout in 1973 when she got a government job that paid $104 a week, “which was the dream back then.” She worked at Waterways Experiment Station, then at the River Commission where a co-worker, June Hebler, invited her to her home. That’s when she met June’s brother‑in‑law, Martin. He was older — 29 and Alice just 20 — but he also was from a good Catholic family, “and come to find out our grandmothers were best friends, so our families go way back together. Our marriage made both sides real happy,” Alice said. She continued to work for the government for five years until Teresa was born, then John, then for 12 years she was a stay‑at‑home mom.

That all changed when her sister‑in‑law got tired of teaching and suggested they open a store together. Alice would be there just part of the time, but her partner got tired of it, Alice bought her out, “and my part‑time became my whole life.” That was in 1988. She rented the building from Max and Sylvan Klaus, “the best landlords in the world,” who kept extra money in the safe in case she needed change, killed bugs for her and charged only $300 a month. They wanted her to buy the place, but she asked them, “Do you think I’ve gone crazy?” though eventually she did buy it.

Martin, she said, who was a mathematician, was supportive “as long as it didn’t cost him any money, and he was going to let me know when I needed to get a real job. He never did, so I’m still here — at Paper Plus — and it never cost him any money.”

Convincing her banker wasn’t that easy, though.

She went to the First National and said she wanted to borrow $20,000, but her friend the banker asked for her business plan — “and I said what’s that? And he said, ‘How do you know you need $20,000?’ and I said it sounded like a good amount. He said, ‘What are you going to sell in your store?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m just going to the Dallas market and buy stuff.’”

He didn’t lend her the money, and Alice went home depressed because she really wanted to open that store. “It was either that or go back to college because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do when I grew up.” She had a trump card — a $20,000 CD which she offered to put up for collateral and threatened to go to someone else — and the bank agreed to the loan.

“That just shows you that someone who really doesn’t know anything about business can still follow their dreams,” Alice said. “Don’t let anybody tell you no, that you can’t. Well, not if you have a man at home who is going to support you and pay the bills.”

She didn’t make any money for years, she said, but the store paid its way — she just didn’t take any money home, and though her husband kept waiting for her to make enough so he could quit, she never reached that goal.

Alice got the idea for Paper Plus from a similar store in Jackson. It was kind of a stationery store, so in addition to paper products she also sells party supplies, printed invitations, college stuff — “So I’ve evolved into a lot of things. I even sell paper made from elephant poop — recycled, of course. I stock things that are a little different.”

She’ll never forget the first anniversary of the store. A man with bushy hair, a bit disheveled and dressed in overalls came in looking for a phone to use — that was before cell phones. He had a problem. He was from the Mississippi Queen steamboat and there was a major electrical problem. Alice helped him get in touch with the right people. Before he left, he noted special decorations and asked about the occasion. Alice told him about the anniversary. Later in the day a chef, complete with a tall white hat, walked in with a sheet cake and four bottles of champagne and a note from the man who had been there earlier — he was the president of the Delta Queen Steamboat Company.

They shared the cake with customers, Alice said, but not the champagne, laughing that “a few hours later, we had to call in my sister Maurene as the designated person to operate Paper Plus.” The story is a good reason to treat all people the same, she said, for you never know who might walk through the doorway.

One of Alice’s claims to fame is that she was Queen of Mardi Gras three years ago, “So I’ve been twice a queen, but my husband called me a princess. Everybody thought he was so sweet,” she said, “but nooooo!”

She got the title one Sunday when she was floating in the pool while he cut grass, chopped wood, “working, working, working, kept walking by and said, ‘You gonna float around all day?’ And I said yes, and he said, ‘You think you’re a damned princess or something?’ and I said, ‘Yep.’”

That started it — Alice has jewelry, signs, even underwear with a Princess brand — and a sign with Princess Parking Only on it — “So, for the last 10 years everybody has been giving me dorky Princess presents.”

Martin was a coon hunter and trained hunting dogs. His favorite, Alice said, was Bertha, “Best coon dog in the world. Somebody once offered him $5,000 for her, so every time he went out of town I’d threaten to sell her, and he’d say, ‘If Bertha ain’t in that pen when I get back, something is going to happen to you,’ and over the years I kept saying he loved that dog more than he loved me.”

Martin had cancer, but he died from a perforated ulcer. He knew he was going to die; but he hadn’t lost his hair or any weight and didn’t suffer. He was in the hospital, unconscious, with Alice seated beside him when all of a sudden he came to, sat up, and told Alice, “I’m kind of excited about dying because when I die, John (their young son, he was deceased) is going to jump into my arms and Bertha is going to lick my hand.” Alice told him there were no dogs in heaven, and Martin said, “Well, I ain’t going to go.” He went back to sleep, but later he came to, saying, “Go, Bertha, get ’em girl. You go, Bertha,” and he dropped Alice’s hand. He had died, but there was a smile on his face as she kissed his forehead and had the last word, whispering, “I knew you loved Bertha more than me.” She feels good to know “he crossed over so very happy.”

During his illness, he and Alice had swapped roles — he did the cooking and she did the outside work. He didn’t want her doing that work, but he told her, “I guess you’ll be all right if you can cut grass.”

Her last request for a present for her birthday was a new lawn mower, she said. He bought it for her — that was almost four years ago — “and it always cranks.”

It’s an important trait of Alice’s — “turn things into humor.”

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Next Sunday, Part Two