As Brian packed utensils into a large box, he looked slowly around the store. He had so many happy memories there. “I wish that you didn’t have to sell the store, Grandpa” he said.
His grandfather put a hand on his shoulder and told him; “I know, Brian. I feel the same way. It breaks my heart to sell the store. I remember when I was a boy, and my great grandfather ran the general store in this building. I spent many a day just following him around and watching him serve his customers. This store has been in our family for over one hundred years. I feel that I’ve let him down by closing the store.”
Jack O’Connell arrived in America in 1896. He left his home in Ireland to make a new life for himself. He was only sixteen, but he was used to hard work. Jack had heard of a thriving city in Ohio called Cincinnati, and he decided that was as good of a place as any to start his new life.
Jack got a job at a hotel as a waiter. He also worked odd jobs around the city. He worked as many as sixteen hours per day, six days per week. He lived on as little money as he could and saved the rest of his wages.
By the time he was twenty-three years old, jack had saved enough money to buy an empty building and he started his own general store. Within a couple of years, the store began making a profit. Jack enlarged the store and started selling a bigger variety of merchandise.
Within a year of opening the store, Jack had met a local girl and within a year, they were married. Five years later, they had a nice family; two daughters and one son.
As the years passed, O’Connell’s General Store flourished. Jack loved children and the children of the neighborhood loved Jack and his store. This relationship may have been the reason that the store gradually changed from a general store to a toy store. Jack became known to the community as Uncle Jack.
Jack and his wife Katie stocked the store with toys and games that were affordable to children with limited spending money. As the years passed, they began selling Katie’s homemade candy and later they added an ice cream and soda fountain.
By the end of the 1930’s, Jack and Katie had changed the name of the store to “O’Connell’s Toys & Treats”. Jack was selling baseball cards and a new novelty that had become popular with the boys; comic books. Jack and Katie kept up with the latest trends and fads in toys, and kept his store stocked with the most popular items, from tin and cast iron toys, to robots, to G.I. Joes, to Barbie dolls. To keep the prices low for his younger customers, Jack bought toys in bulk.
His children, now grown with children of their own, told him that he was making bad business decisions. Jack and Katie ignored their criticism. They cared more for the children of the neighborhood, then becoming rich.
When Jack was seventy years old, Katie died and Jack found himself alone for the first time in over forty-five years. He thought about retiring, but he could not bear to close the store. It had become a popular hangout for children of all ages.
Jack tried to get his children and grandchildren interested in taking over the store, but they were all busy with their own lives. When they were children, they loved the store, but as they grew up, their interest in the store faded.
Therefore, Jack kept the store open and put off retirement. At the age of eighty, he knew that he still had a few good years left and there was one great grand children; Michael, who had the same love and enthusiasm for the store as he did. Michael was fifteen and had been coming to the store since he was three years old. At the age of twelve, he started working there after school and on weekends and during summer vacation. He swept up, stocked shelves, and occasionally waited on customers.
Michael loved listening to Jack tell stories about Ireland, and about his early years in America. The two of them were kindred spirits. One day, about a month after Michael turned fifteen, Jack asked him if he would be interested in taking over the store after college. Michael was thrilled and said he would love to run the store. He truly loved the store as much as Jack did. He promised his parents and great grandfather that he would go to college and get a degree in business.
From that day forward, Jack took Michael under his wing and taught him everything there was to know about the toy business. Over the next three years, Michael came up with some good ideas on how to modernize the store, while still keeping that old-fashioned feel to it.
In 1960, the store still had a working soda/ice cream fountain. The store now sold over thirty kinds of homemade candy, made from the recipes of Katie O’Connell. Younger children still came in with their spending money to buy comic books, toys and candy. The older kids came in after school for a soda or ice cream. It was the favorite hangout for kids in the neighborhood.
In December of 1963, Michael had just finished his first semester of college. When he arrived home for Christmas break, he was given the sad news that his great grandfather Jack had passed away in his sleep that morning at the age of eighty-three.
Michael was devastated. He felt that no one else knew him as well as Great grandpa Jack had known him. And, now Jack was gone.
Jack’s funeral had to be held outdoors, since there was no building that could hold all of Jack’s family and friends. Hundreds of people came to pay their last respects to “Uncle Jack” as he was known in the community. Five generations of people from the community knew and loved Jack. They were more upset by his death than they were when President Kennedy died the month before.
Mike gave the eulogy at the funeral. He got through about half of it before he broke down in tears. Mike did not think there was anyone who really knew how close the two of them were, and he was probably right.
During the previous summer, Jack had contacted a lawyer and had made Michael his partner in the store. In the papers, Jack stated that if anything happened to him, then Michael would become the sole owner of the store.
Now that Jack was gone, Mike did not know how he could run the store without him. Mike might have considered closing the store, if he had not received a letter from Jack’s lawyer after the funeral.