Note: Jan Emmert provides the following additional information concerning the photo of Santa that the Icon posted on Dec. 24. The information provided is a portion of an email he sent to his brothers and sisters.
There are two things of interest to our family in this picture in the Bluffton Icon of downtown Bluffton, including the old Citizens Bank in the Center of town.
You probably know, but only Joan and Sally might remember, that dad (Paul Emmert) had a business downtown, Emmert Plumbing and Heating, roughly from 1949 to early 1952, I believe. The business was in the large building to the left of the bank.
I don't think we have any pictures of the store/showroom, and even this picture does not show his store clearly. The parts of interest (such as the sign) are largely blocked out by a light post and sign across the street and closer to Santa and the camera. But the building is shown clearly and I can identify the white edge of Dad's sign, when the picture is enlarged.
The large building to the left of the bank actually had four store front businesses, not three, as mentioned in the Icon, though it depends on exactly when this picture was taken. Going from left to right was:
• Ulrich's IGA (grocery store), owned by Joe Ulrich, Sr.
• Emmert Plumbing and Heating (including some kitchen appliances and TVs)
• The Charles Company (a small town clothing chain company where Joan worked for awhile on weekends when she was in High School); and
Crows 5 to 10 cent store (an inexpensive variety store that carried a little bit of everything).
We don't have much/any reliable documentation of this store that I am aware of. Dad did advertize in the Bluffton High School annual, the Bucaneer for two or three years, and I found a couple of those ads on the internet. There may also be ads in the Bluffton News, which could help us pin down exactly when the business was open.
Though I don't know the details, I believe the business essentially went bankrupt, because Dad was not able to collect payment when he did plumbing in people's houses, and was too generous with credit when he barely had any capital himself.
I "worked" one summer vacation for him after either first or second grade (probably 1950) and earned $1 per week, and thought I was probably the richest kid in my class when school started up. (That didn't last the rest of my childhood, when I began to understand what our financial status really was!)
Though Dad had several employees during the time he operated his business, the only one I clearly remember was George McCune, who I believe is still living in Bluffton. I believe Luther Shetler also mentioned to us that he worked for Dad one or two summers after they moved to Bluffton from Goshen to teach at the college.
Since Rick's birthday is coming up in two days, I'll note that for about six weeks before Rick was born, Dad ran a small ad in the Bluffton News that only said "Five in December," with no other explanation. During that time (November-Dececember 1949), Leland Gerber came out to our house (which was then the garage) and took a picture of the other four of us children (Jan, Joan, Sally and Jim) looking in a baby basket (which of course was actually empty when the picture was taken).
The issue after "Ricky" was born showed the ad again with that picture, announcing that Ricky's birth made us five children in December. That is the only picture I recall of the inside of our house when we lived in the garage, which would only have been one+ year old at that point.
Can anyone else remember any more of that? I'll also add that at first I was looking closely at the Santa picture to see if it was Dad. But the Santa is identified clearly as Al McCluer in the Icon. Dad was the Santa one year; I think the Santa event was in front of the town hall that year, however.
