occasional furniture
Ruth got his start at the furniture industry driving a delivery truck and receiving his neighborhood buddies to assist him haul mattresses. Now, health issues are currently forcing him to close down his Gerard's Furniture store.
"I'm gonna continue functioning. I got to deliver all this furniture."
Twenty-two years back, when he turned 65, Ruth brought in an outside company to help him sell the inventory off.
Ironically, the identical company that assisted him with the retirement sale back is helping him with this going-out-of-business sale.
Ruth, 87 does business like he always did. His store does not have a website. "I really don't text and I don't email," he explained. "Just been a couple of years ago we got a computer for bookkeeping."
Gerard's has a focus on American-made furniture.
"All that stuff on the internet, it's like going into the ships. It is gambling. You don't know what you going to have," he said. "Some of the leather is seconds, some of it is rejects."
Ruth began working at the furniture industry during his senior year in Baton Rouge High in Lloyd Furniture Co., then at 1126 North Blvd.. After graduation, he attended LSU, then joined the Coast Guard during the Korean War.
Back in 1953, he returned with the furniture store to his job and to Baton Rouge.
He had been a salesman in Hemenway's, Ruth got into racing. He was a catalyst for your Tom Cat Baby, a boat with a Corvette engine that won the dangerous and prestigious Pan American race Lake Pontchartrain in 1958.
Throughout the ship races, Ruth became buddies with Lewis Gottlieb, president of City National Bank. Some teams that were rushing were endorsed by gottlieb.
Ruth got a call from Gottlieb, 1 afternoon. The proprietor of Simon Furniture Co. had died and his children were not interested in taking over the enterprise. Would Ruth be interested in owning a furniture store?
Gottlieb advised him to have a look at the store, and when he was interested, he would help him fund the offer.
"It was a nice shop, and I knew I could do some good over there," Ruth explained. The issue was money. His wife and ruth, Selma, had just had their second child, and that he just needed a few hundred dollars after paying the hospital bill. However he did have a life insurance policy he purchased from a fellow member of the Red Stick Kiwanis Club.
"Mr. Gottlieb told me to deliver him that insurance coverage to the lender," Ruth said. "He told me'You are going to make it."
Gerard's Furniture started in 1966. There were three employees: the Ruths and a bookkeeper. In the store, Ruth sold furniture Throughout the day. In the evenings, he also delivered.
At that time, the most popular trend in furniture was Victorian - and Spanish-style furniture. An effective Atlanta furniture salesman visited Gerard's Furniture and told Ruth he had to find some of those items in the store. Ruth told the guy he did not have the money so he got them to ship three suites of Mediterranean-style furniture to Gerard and called a Virginia maker. "That cranked up business," Ruth explained. "We sold the hell out of the furniture"
A few years after, Ruth discovered about a store. Ruth checked the building at 7330 Florida Blvd. and decided to purchase it and fix it up.
"It cost $2 million to revive the whole building," he said.
Gerard's Furniture's Florida Boulevard place opened around 1975. The store won acclaim for its completeness of this choice, which included furniture, art, fabrics, rugs and decorative accessories. One room is filled with George Rodrigue prints in the 1970s. His son Larry prints at a different area of the store and has a bunch of original Louisiana art.
To round out the selection Ruth visits with the major furniture markets in North Carolina every six months to locate items.
"Baton Rouge has always been interested in great taste and traditional furniture," he explained. "The people who purchase nice furniture want to sit in it, want to feel it, and when they have any knowledge in any way, unzip it and see what's inside ."
Over the years, Ruth has had health issues, including cancer and diabetes. Lately, he was diagnosed with chronic lung disease. That led him to shut the shop after meeting with four kids and his wife.
"I got outvoted," he explained. The decision was made to liquidate the business, because his kids all have professional occupations.
"I never got rich, but I managed to raise four kids, send them all off to school -- and not have to pay any institutions or lawyers to get them out of trouble," he said.
Despite his years in business, Ruth stated he decided to shut the store.
"My family would go mad trying to figure out everything in the furniture store," he explained.
He also made a point of helping eight grandchildren and his children find items in the shop to help decorate their own houses.
Plans are to spend promoting all of the article source stock off in Gerard's. When all is gone, the store will close.
Ruth said he's seen a increase in customers since declaring his business was shutting down. The day after see page it was announced he closed, 500 people showed up at the store. The following day about 400 people were there.
"We had them come from 20, 30, 40, even 50 years ago to purchase things on our economy," he explained. "It has been rewarding."