2004 Year in Review

Golden Business: Vern’s Home Furnishings

Main Street East from Genesee Street

Vern's Home Furnishings

Reynolds Furniture, the original wood floors and wainscoting ceiling are still in Vern's Home Furnishings.

Vern Renkes purchased and expanded into the Donicky's Drug Store to make his main entrance.

Golden Businesses are businesses that were here during the Centennial Celebration in 1955 and are still in business today as we approach the Sesquicentennial in 2005.

Vern’s Home Furnishings is one of those businesses and is currently owned by Jeff Brands. He started working for former owner Phil M. Renkes in 1986. In January 1990 Brands purchased the business.

Originally, in 1891, E.C. Reynolds owned the business and by 1893 a partnership was formed with W.L Smith and it became Reynolds and Smith Furniture. At one time they were the largest furniture store west of Chicago. April 24, 1895 Undertaking was added to the name (some glass jars for embalming are still in the basement). Both men were licensed embalmers. According to Renkes the undertaking was done in the older back portion of 110 E. Main Street building. While remodeling they had to remove the embalming room.

The original furniture business was in the eastern building at 110 E. Main Street. Vern Renkes, Phil’s father, purchased the business from Reynolds. The Odd Fellows owned the building until the 70’s when Phil purchased it.

Vern Renkes lived in Clinton but his wife was from Morrison. He worked for Prudential Insurance in Clinton until he was drafted into World War II. While in the service he purchased a second home in Morrison to move his family and when his service ended in 1944 they chose to live in Morrison. Vern stayed with Prudential for a few years and decided to get a job at Volckman Furniture Mfg. Co. where members of his family were working as treasurer and salesman.

In 1949, he purchased Reynolds Furniture and changed the name to Vern’s Home Furnishings. Phil, known as Furniture Phil by the locals, started working for his dad before he graduated and later moved into managing the store. In the late 60’s Phil purchased the business. His father moved into a job at the courthouse and later became County Treasurer.

Years ago the downtown stores were open on Saturday nights and everyone would fill the downtown to buy their groceries, clothing, and other items. Later the downtown stayed open on Mondays then Fridays but found people were not interested in shopping in the evenings.

Unlike businesses now, which have sales every week, Dollar Days in the spring and Ridiculous Days in the fall brought crowds into town and were the only sales of the year. On those special days, people were waiting on the sidewalk for the stores to open.

After 40 years in business, Phil has seen changes in the downtown. Buikema-Blass Clothing, and Hub Cleaners were neighbors but are no longer in business. The downtown had several grocery stores, hardware stores, and clothing stores that are now gone. When current route 88 was opened it hurt local business. It made it possible to be in Chicago or the Quad Cities quickly and it was easy for people to shop out of town.

Consolidation of manufacturing has had a big impact in the furniture industry. There are fewer sources and fewer contacts. Jeff Brands purchases his furniture by catalog while Phil remembers buying from salesman. One salesman only traveled by bus or train (he never drove). But most salesmen drove to Morrison to sell their line. Oak is now the number one selling wood. According to Renkes 55% of all wood furniture is now made in China.

Phil remembers Morrison as a growing town with the economic boom of G.E. People were building new homes and needed furniture. They handled carpeting and he remembers carpeting a huge number of homes in the area.

Reynolds Furniture had a second story in the back of the building where they had a rug showroom. They carried over 50 varieties of large rugs, inlaid and printed linoleum and a line of ingrain carpets. Phil used the area for juvenile and dinette furniture but Brands just uses it for storage.

The Odd Fellows had the second floor for offices and pool tables. The Boy Scouts rent the floor now. The third story was a banquet room for the Fellows and is now home to LeAnn’s Dance Connection and Flip-N-Twist Tumbling. Morrison Club met above the west building and had a poolroom.

In the early 60’s, Renkes moved into 108 E. Main where Donichy’s Drug Store was. Before that it was the National Tea Grocery Store. They remodeled the front by removing the door in the east building and added plate glass viewing windows in both the Main and Lincolnway sides of the buildings. The eastern building has the original wooden floors and wainscoting ceiling. The only change Brands has made to the building is the addition of a new cloth awning.

Across Lincolnway, the current Shawver Press building was originally the Chevrolet garage (before they moved out where Chuck Lindsay is) and Phil purchased the building and used half of it for warehouse and half for an Ethan Allen Furniture showroom. After he sold it to Al Shawver he purchased the old Capitol Theatre when it closed and stored furniture in it until it was town down for Hardees.

Renkes had a large inventory. “I was well blessed in the furniture business. I did my best to have a good, honest business and had good fortune. Morrison was good to us. It’s a nice small city but it needs to grow again. With G.E. we had more jobs than residents. We were asleep and that hurt us today.” Phil explained. Brands looks forward to Wal-mart’s Distribution Center bringing jobs and new homes back to the area.

Phil’s uncle and brother, John, were managers for Volckman Furniture and when he learned Ethan Allen was looking for a Midwest upholstery plant he was instrumental in their purchase of Volckmans. At one time they even purchased property to build a new plant but because of company consolidation they changed their minds and ended up closing the Morrison plant.

Brands has delivered furniture to Chicago, Peoria, and Des Moines, but their most memorable deliver was to Bobby McCoy, parent of the septuplets. Ebenezer Church’s youth group raised the money for a fourteen-person dining room table and ordered it through Vern’s. While delivering the table they were able to hold the babies. They also helped move furniture from their old home into the new.

The public thinks it’s hard for small businesses to compete against the big chains but Brands explained, “Actually they can, because they have lower overhead.” Brands tried different types of advertising, but has found word of mouth and having windows on both U.S. 30 and Main Street are his best advertising. Recliners, mattresses, and sofas are his biggest sellers. He has over a quarter million dollar in furniture available.

Retail in Morrison has changed in the last 20 years. All the clothing stores are gone and most of the retail. The public is doing more out of town shopping and they expect sales all the time. Any business, especially retail, that can continue for more than 50 years needs to be congratulated and recognized.

This is the first in a series of Golden Business stories leading to the Sesquicentennial. These businesses may or may not survive to our 200th birthday but their existence is in the consumer’s hands and in the economic future of the community.

by Barb Benson, theCity1.com
January 13, 2004