BY JENNY HUMPHRYES
Managing Editor
At age 15, Ralph Steele Jr. used to come home from school and help his dad deliver furniture at the family's business on the 500 block of Howard Street.
Now, some 50 years later, Steele is preparing to close the family business and retire.
Steele Furniture, now on Carrollton Avenue, celebrated its 50th anniversary in July.
Steele's father, Ralph Steele Sr., moved the store from Howard Street to Carrollton Avenue in 1962. Steele Furniture is located in the old Quinn Drug Co. building, which was built in 1919. The building is owned by the Antoon family.
"My father started the business in July 1952," Steele said. "I was the delivery man after school."
Being a delivery man was something Steele said he had to do to help the family.
"It was something that just had to be done," he said. "It was an economic necessity. Dad was just getting started, and he couldn't afford to hire a full-time delivery man. My mother worked in the store, too."
Steele said his mother only worked part-time. "If there was a heavy piece of furniture that would take two people to deliver, she would stay in the store while me and dad made the delivery."
Steele said his mother and father had both been school teachers. His dad, however, had gotten into the furniture business before moving the family to Mississippi in the early 1950s.
After helping his father as a youngster, Steele wanted to do anything but work in the furniture business.
After college, he worked in industrial management for two years, and he moved to Cleveland and worked at Baxter Laboratories another four years.
"Baxter Laboratories was a great place to work, and I was in management over there, too," Steele said.
But with his dad trying to retire, Steele was talked into coming back to Greenwood in 1965 to run the family business - a decision he hasn't regretted.
"I had a family then. We had one child, and I felt like I wanted to stay in Mississippi," Steele said.
"Baxter wanted to put me on the fast track. I just didn't want to move all over the place," he said.
"But it's been rewarding," Steele said. "I got most of my wish. I got to stay in one place most of my life."
Steele bought the store from his father in the early 1970s. And for most of the years he's owned the business, he has worked with his wife, Lucille.
"She retired from teaching school in 1977 and helped when I bought the store from my father," Steele said. "She works full-time at the store every day."
"Some people say you can't work with your husband, but we've been fine, and we've enjoyed it," Mrs. Steele said.
Steele said he decided to close the store because he and his wife are both retirement age now. Steele is 65, and his wife turned 63 this week. "We're Social Security age," he said.
"The day-to-day grind gets to be a chore for us old folks," Steele said.
The slow economy also factored into the decision, Steele said.
One of Steele's favorite things about being a small-town businessman has been getting to know people in the community.
"You really get to know the community better being in any kind of business, not just the furniture business," he said. "It's not like being in a big town."
Steele also enjoys seeing his customers happy. "I like to see them 15 years later saying they still have that bedroom suite, or that they are still enjoying the furniture they bought so many years ago."
And it's that day-to-day interaction with people Steele said he will miss most.
"I probably won't see as many people every day," he said. "So I'll just have to get out and see them in public."
As for the future, the Steeles have no plans to leave Greenwood, other than visiting family.
"I've enjoyed being here," Steele said. "It's a good community. Even though we're going out of business, we don't plan to go anyplace else. We plan to live in the same town and the same house. We're just going to do things a little differently."
A top priority for the Steeles is to spend more time with their children and grandchildren.
The Steeles have a daughter, Kay Schroeder, who lives in Greenwood. She is married and has two children. "The two (grandchildren) here, we see pretty often. They only live five or six blocks from us," Steele said.
They also have a daughter, Margaret Kowalczyk, a son-in-law and a grandson in Illinois.
"We're going to go up north and visit our daughter for a while," Mrs. Steele said.
"My wife has been going up there twice a year," Steele said, but he hasn't been able to go due to work.
Working six days a week leaves little time for anything else, Steele said.
After getting used to having only one day a week off for so long, Steele now will have seven.
"I'll find something to do," he said. "I'm not one to sit around. Oh, I have hobbies - fishing and gardening mostly, but I hunt some. I might start doing some of that again."
Mrs. Steele said she is going to start back doing some of the things she has missed while working at the store. "I used to play bridge," she said. "I haven't played in a while, and I'm looking forward to that."
Since learning of the furniture store's closing, Steele said, many people have called and came by the store to wish them well. "There were three or four people in the store today to congratulate us," he said.
Main Street Greenwood Executive Director Lisa Cookston said the Steeles are going to be missed in the downtown community.
"We'll miss them. They are good people, and we were glad to have them as Main Street members," Cookston said.
"Steele's is a fixture on Carrollton Avenue. It's a great building that we hate to see go unoccupied," she said.
Family friend Tish Goodman said, "They've devoted their life to that furniture store."
Goodman said she is excited for them to be able to have some time to do some things they've been missing out on.
But Steele said he is not sure when the last day of business will be.
"We don't have a timetable of when to be out of the store," he said. "It will be when we deplete our existing merchandise."
More than half of the stock already has been sold, Steele said.
But the sales have slowed down. "The more you sell, the less selection you have, and the sales volume slacks off," he said.
