A chair, a clock, and a cash register

hold memories of the family furniture store in north Minneapolis

My grandfather, Rick Swenson, grew up in north Minneapolis working for his father — my great-grandfather, Louis Swenson. He met and married Meta Wolertz, purchased a modest stucco house in the Camden neighborhood, and raised four children. Dad was the youngest of his three sons.

What I remember about Grampa Swenson is the look of glee on his face when he pulled a nickel out from behind my ear. When he crossed his legs, I sat on his dangling foot as though it were a rocking horse and he bounced me up and down and all around. He’d pinch my nose and show me his fist with a protruding thumb between his index and middle finger that strongly resembled my nose.

Most of my memories of Grampa Swenson are connected to his place of business, Pearson & Swenson Furniture, located in a three-story brick building that stood at 609 West Broadway in north Minneapolis. It’s where he worked six days a week.

On February 14, 1963, the North Minneapolis Post published Grampa’s photograph on the front page with a story about the family furniture store which had been in business for 60 years.

The story starts with Grampa reminiscing from his 50-year-old office chair.

I remember Grampa Swenson sitting in that chair. The leather seat had been patched and reattached with brass rivets. Made from oak, the chair swiveled from side to side and tilted up and down and spun around on castors.

I remember sitting in that chair myself.

That chair held three generations of Swenson businessmen. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my father. That chair, Grampa is quoted as saying, is a “reminder of the old days.”

He also mentioned a grandfather clock. “That clock is a youngster. It’s only 45 years old,” he said.

It stood sentinel near the front entrance of the store facing West Broadway. It seemed so tall to me back then.

Now it stands in my living room at 108 years old and keeps on ticking.

In February of 1963 I was not yet five years old. I had no memory of this newspaper article or any 60th anniversary celebration for the family business. It’s like a Valentine delivered to me from the past.

It was a sweet treat to discover my grandfather’s affection for history. According to the news story, he did some research “as far back as they go” and claimed Pearson & Swenson to be the oldest furniture store still in business.

Minneapolis first published a city directory in 1859. While there certainly had been furniture stores in Minneapolis before 1903,¹ my grandfather’s claim that Pearson & Swenson was the oldest furniture store still doing business in Minneapolis appears to have been true.

There were other truths my grandfather passed down.

“You can’t afford to buy cheap furniture.”

I heard my dad say it hundreds of times. He heard it from Grampa.

“Cheap furniture doesn’t last.”

I know it to be true. A sofa, chair, hassock, several lamps, and paintings which originally came from Pearson & Swenson Furniture are still in good condition and in use today in my home.

Now that I am older than my grandfather was then, I comprehend for the first time that Grampa didn’t become the sole business owner until he was already a grandfather himself. His father went into business with Mr. Pearson in 1923 and my grandfather went to work for them. It wasn’t until 1960 when Grampa bought out Pearson’s share of the business.

In my memory, the store had always belonged to him. Maybe it’s more of a feeling. A feeling that he had always belonged to the store even more than the store had belonged to him.

The article about the history of our family furniture store ended on an optimistic note:

And chances are good that Pearson & Swenson Furniture will be around for another 60 years. Swenson’s son, Bob, came into the business last year.

Not quite two years later, Grampa died suddenly of a heart attack, and left my father responsible for the furniture store.

Dad kept his father’s office chair. At some point in the early 1970s, it broke in half where the base met the seat. It happened not too long after the store had closed; urban renewal and interstate highway construction transformed West Broadway.

Dad stored both pieces of his father’s broken chair wrapped up carefully in a furniture blanket and then covered in heavy plastic. It went from basement to basement the rest of his life.

Right now it awaits restoration at my sister’s place. Barb also has an office chair from Pearson & Swenson Furniture of the same vintage. Her husband, Eric, restored it several years ago. It is as good as new more than a century later.

My talented brother-in-law also restored the brass National Cash Register which came from Pearson & Swenson Furniture. This first photo is from before restoration.

Here’s the “after” photo. It sits on display in their home in Stillwater, Minnesota.

The chair, the clock, and the cash register remind me not so much of the old days, but all the love I once felt in that three-story palace of fine home furnishings that was our family business. In my little girl dreams, I had imagined one day I would grow up and the store would be mine.

“Be the answer to your ancestors’ prayers,” Sean Sherman said recently, during an interview with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on the PBS Program, Finding Your Roots. When I heard him say that, I thought about Grampa Swenson. What had he hoped for me? While I might have felt all this time it was to keep Pearson & Swenson going another 60 years, now I realize he’d want me to learn from history and tell the truth.

1. The New England Furniture and Carpet Company in 1887 opened one of the largest retail spaces in downtown Minneapolis in a former rollerskating emporium.