Tributes have been paid to a Westhill woman who ran a popular clothes and jewellery shop in Aberdeen, and made wigs for cancer patients on the side.
Naomi Bergeron, 88, ran the Bergeron boutique on Thistle Street in Aberdeen with her sister Joan Baillie for 25 years.
Her family remembered her as a “hard worker with a great personality” who charmed city customers for a quarter of a century.
“I loved her to bits,” said son Steve.
Began working life as a lab technician
Naomi Ruth Bergeron was born on October 22, 1937 in Leith, to Chartres and Elsa Baillie.
Chartres was an engineer in the Merchant Navy and Elsa was a housewife.
Elsa came from Latvia, having moved to Scotland in 1930 after meeting Chartres while he was travelling as a merchant seaman.
Naomi was the youngest of three girls, with older sisters Margaret, who died in 1991, and Joan.
After leaving school in Edinburgh, Naomi got a job as a lab technician at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
Move to Westhill and opening of Bergeron boutique in Aberdeen
Married four times, Naomi had four children, Mark and Julia with first husband Tony Davidson, and Simone and Steve with Gilford Bergeron. Steve was adopted by Naomi and Gilford as a one-year-old.
“They actually got married to do that,” said Steve, 43.
“I think it was one of the first such cases in Scotland where a couple got married in order to adopt a child.”
Naomi split from Gilford Bergeron when Steve was four and returned to Louisiana in his native USA.
Naomi brought Steve and sister Simone up herself in Westhill. Simeone, two years older than Steve, now lives in Perth, Australia.
Within months of moving to Westhill in the late 1980s, Naomi had set up the Bergeron boutique with sister Joan.
Reunited with ‘first love’
She lived in Westhill until 2005, when she closed the Bergeron boutique and moved down to Berwick-upon-Tweed with her partner Dougie Barr.
Dougie was described by Steve as his mum’s “first love”, with the pair having gone to school together before going their separate ways.
Naomi had heard about Dougie’s wife’s death and called to pass on her commiserations.
“Next thing you know,” said Steve, “she was going down quite often to see him, and then she moved down to live with him.”
Naomi was a “really loving Grandma” to six grandchildren.
Son’s memories of Bergeron boutique: ‘I’d hide round the back when customers came in’
But she was undoubtedly best known in Aberdeen and the north-east for running the Bergeron boutique.
“It was a little boutique shop that had clothes and jewellery,” said Steve.
“You walked in and there was a glass cabinet with jewellery in it, which she stood behind, and there were clothes rails.
“I remember her saying that a woman from the Codona family used to come in quite often.”
He added: “She was always very helpful with the customers.
“I remember whenever I was in the shop, if a customer came in I’d nip round the back where the toilets were.
“She was always so nice with them – I guess she wouldn’t have been in business for 20 years if she wasn’t.”
‘Side gig’ making wigs for women in need
Naomi also had a “side gig” making wigs for cancer patients at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI).
“She did it at night,” said Steve.
“I’m not sure how she got into it, but she’d go up to the hospital with a big bag full of wigs for people with alopecia or cancer or leukaemia and stuff like that, to help them while they were going through their radiotherapy or chemotherapy.
“She’d design wigs for them, she’d cater them to how the patients wanted it to look.”
Steve remembers his mum as a born grafter.
“She was a very hard-working person with a great personality. Very kind, a very nice and generous person.
“But I specifically remember her being just such a hard worker.
“She’d be working at the shop, then doing her wigs on the side, and she was so tired when she got home.
“And then at the weekends she’d be cleaning the house, looking after Simone and I.
“Just always, always on the go.”
‘I just loved her to bits’
Naomi’s niece Ruth Skinner remembers her auntie as “very, very good at DIY. Very self-sufficient, and a good cook too.
“And she loved walking her dogs, which she and Dougie had for the last 20 years.”
Steve said: “I just absolutely loved her to bits. She was a great grandmother too, a really loving Grandma to all the grandkids.
“She had a good life.”
Naomi Bergeron died on March 23, having battled COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
Her funeral will be at Houndwood Crematorium in Eyemouth on April 4.
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