For over four decades, the large brick building at 103 West Washington Street was home to two different furniture stores - first Young’s Furniture, owned by Harold and Alice Young, and then White’s Furniture, owned by Bob and Marie White. Since the closure of White’s Furniture in 1993, the building has housed several different businesses and today stands empty following a fire in adjoining 101 West Washington in April 2022.
With the building’s fate of demolition probable due to the extensive damage caused by the fire, two women - Martha (Young) Wade and Marie White - reflect on their pasts inside the building’s walls.
Young’s Furniture
Before going to work full time in the furniture business, Harold Young worked as a lawyer. He had become self-taught during his studies with the Stubblefield Law Office, and received his law degree in 1940. When World War II broke out, Harold was asked to become an FBI agent, where he learned surveillance techniques and fingerprinting. In 1950, Harold left the FBI and went into business for himself and opened Young’s Furniture.
Harold had learned the furniture business from Paul Reinhart of Reinhart’s Furniture (located in Osceola), and he and Alice transformed Young’s Furniture into one of the area’s first big volume, low priced furniture stores. Both did the selling of furniture, with Alice taking care of the store’s books and Harold the buying. Martha recalls her father as stating that while not all the furniture was to his liking, he knew he had to carry what other people liked, or risk running out of business.
Martha can remember her parents selling lava lamps in the 60′s, which have regained popularity in recent years. When her parents started selling TV sets the Youngs got one of their own, well before they were commonplace in homes. When Harold went to purchase a chair for the specific purpose of watching the TV, he found one to test out. However just as he sat down, the glue in one of the legs gave way, and to the floor Harold went.
“I like the chair, but it is a little low,” Harold is to have said.
On Sunday mornings, Harold would go to the store and put down the awning to protect the furniture inside on display, and return in the evenings to take it up. To ensure the front door was locked, Harold would shake it several times, and that is a habit that Martha has carried with her. Martha and brother Steve got to help in the store, with Martha doing the dusting and Steve helping move furniture.
White’s Furniture
In 1973, Bob White was ready for a change from his job with the Clarke County Secondary Road department. He left his position on May 1, took over at the furniture store on June 1, and had one month to learn as much as he could from Harold before officially assuming ownership on July 1 with wife Marie. Along with the business, Bob and Marie purchased the furniture store’s warehouse, which was located just north of the store, and bought the store’s building in 1984.
The Whites carried a full line of furniture, bedding, floor coverings and more. The store was over 4,600 square feet, plus a balcony to house everything on display. The couple traveled to Dallas several times to furniture markets, where they would see new furniture styles, trends and fabrics. Salesmen would come to the store after the market with market specials.
Various distributors in Des Moines were used, and furniture and mattress companies delivered either with the company trucks or sometimes common carriers. Berkline furniture, which the Whites were dealers of, was delivered via rail car, as it was a cheaper method of delivery. Reps would sell 1/2 or 1/3 of a rail car to dealers, and the railroad agent would call to let the Whites know when their rail car was in town. They then had three days to get their furniture out. Normally the cars were loaded by stop making it an in-and-out operation, but Marie remembers one time when that was not the case. An incorrect loading order meant they had to unload a different order to get to theirs, take everything to the warehouse, then go back and put the other order back on the rail car.
Room groups of sofas, chairs, end tables and love seats were just becoming popular when the Whites went into business. Styles and fabrics of the time varied from contemporary to country plains to stripes to florals. Furniture, bedding and floor covering were kept in the store’s basement and in the warehouse. A three-ring binder with sheets of paper showed the current inventory, and when something was sold, that entry’s color number and style were erased to always keep a correct inventory count.
“We thought of the inventory book as our Bible,” said Marie, who still has the notebook.
A memorable experience for Marie was when Bob was away from the store, and a furniture delivery came. An elevator had been built in the store in 1922, and was hand operated using a rope and pulley system. Harold Young had come to help, and he and a salesman were on the elevator to take some furniture to the basement. Down they went, and a few moments Marie heard yelling.
She opened the doors to the elevator to see what the issue was, and was informed she needed to go to the basement to open the door for them. Unbeknownst to Marie, there was a hook and a bed rail propped against the elevator doors in the basement that needed to be undone. Marie had to walk from the back of the store to the front, down the stairs and to the back of the basement to let the men out. She went back upstairs as they unloaded, and had to repeat the whole ordeal when they were done.
Like the Young kids, the White’s kids also grew up in the store, helping with dusting, sweeping and the occasional delivery. It was also the place to go after school when no one was at home.
In 1993, the Whites sold the furniture store and worked elsewhere until they retired - Bob with an abstract company in Des Moines, and Marie in the Clarke County Recorder’s office.
Reflections
Both Martha and Marie have many memories of their time spent in their respective furniture stores, more good than bad.
As a child, Martha remembers watching the July 4 parade from a window in the air conditioned building. With most of the stores in downtown Osceola open on Saturday nights, Alice would send Martha off to Osceola Drug for her dinner - a chocolate malt. She recalls that despite her parents being in the furniture business, there are many Christmas photos with a broken lamp in the background. She and Marie both agreed there was often the assumption that being in the furniture business, your home must be filled with all of the nicest furniture.
For Marie, an example of that notion came when a couple stopped by the store looking for a used hide-a-bed. Knowing the one at home was no longer what Marie wanted, Bob sent the customers down to their house to look at it. The customers liked it, and bought it. The Whites then went without a hide-a-bed for quite some time until they decided on one they liked.
Marie shared a story about a customer who came in once to look at a couch that was on display in the window. The customer, a woman, was searching for a couch that was shorter than most, as she was shorter. The woman also liked to lay on the couch, and wondered if Marie, who she thought was about her height, might lay on it for her to see how it fit. Marie obliged, and the satisfied customer purchased the couch.
Young’s, and later White’s, were not the only furniture stores in Osceola at the time they were in business. There was another on the east side of the square (south of First National Bank) and it afforded shoppers the option of looking at two different places locally. Sometimes, a customer might buy one piece of furniture at one store and then a matching piece at the other, and the two businesses would coordinate to deliver the pieces to the customer’s home, instead of sending two individual deliveries.
Today, Osceola has just one furniture store, Clark’s New and Used Furniture, which opened in 1992 just a few doors down from 103 West Washington at 121 West Washington.
One thing that stands out for both Martha and Marie from all of the years, and the reason both businesses were able to continue as they did, are the customers.
“Mom and Dad always felt they had great customers with many becoming good friends,” said Martha.
“[Bob and I] could say that, too…I feel the same way,” agreed Marie.