WESTERN AUTO STORE
by Ed (and Bill) Sager
Grand Opening l-r: Tom Love; ?; Bill Sager; Fern Sager; Ether Reese;
(Willi Sager visible in window - far right) 132 N. Ridgewood Dr.
Dad rented a house for us on Fernvale Avenue from Bill Young. We moved from Philadelphia in February of 1963. Terrazzo floors and concrete block construction were all new to us. We were near Woodlawn Elementary School and could walk around the corner where Jack Ingle was Principle.
Western Auto pioneered the associate store concept and at one point had 4,000 associate stores around the country. Later they sold out the brand to Sears who sold it to Advanced Auto Parts.
Dad’s mother, Fern Sager, moved down with us and lived right next door at 1236 Fernvale Avenue for the rest of her life. Later we lived there for twelve years and then my mother and finally our youngest son Roy and Deanna and their family until earlier this year. Fern worked part time in the store. She is pictured to the right of my father in the photo.
Dad hired a man who was the next door neighbor of my Llewellyn grandparents from Sebring Hills named Ether Reese to work at the store. Mr. Reese came from West Virginia and was a nice older gentleman who understood how to deal with the public and worked well in the store. He is pictured on the far right in the photo of the grand opening.
Tom Love was a student at Sebring High School. He worked part time in the store. Once he built a crazy bicycle that was really tall by flipping the frame upside down and welding extended posts for the seat and handlebars. I used to ride it around town some. I had to climb a tree to get up on it and it didn’t have any brakes so I had to jump off. I think Tom went on to become an architect in Jacksonville. His brother Ron still lives in Sebring.
Shortly after this Dad hired Don ‘Pete’ Francis to work in the store. Pete still lives in Sebring. He is very mechanically gifted and worked in the back of the store to assemble and repair things. He had lived here most of his life and was a good worker. Dad appreciated him.
Another employee that worked at the store was Mr. Hal Keyes. Hal was originally from Miami. He and his wife also lived in Sebring Hills and they had one daughter named Cindy. Hal was a very nice man who got along with people well and made a good salesman. He was fairly tall and slim. He had a pencil mustache and kept it trimmed. Mr. Keyes was very active in the Kiwanis Club here. When I grew up he invited me to join the Breakfast Club that was just being started and I became a charter member through his insistence. Hal also gifted me with a camping tent once. It was a huge old Sears canvas tent that his family had camped in when they were building their house here. I think it was originally from about 1956! We used it to camp around the Blue Ridge mountains back in the 1980’s! It was huge and very heavy.
Dad was a member of the Sebring Lion’s Club in those days. They met in the old Sebring Hotel I recall.
Western Auto sold everything from bicycles to bullets. They had appliances, radios and televisions, nuts and bolts, tools, hardware items, fishing tackle, sporting and hunting goods, auto parts, lawnmowers, boating supplies and a little bit of everything. The store was in the Hainz Building and had black and white geometric tile floors and high ceilings with paddle fans and a transom window over the front doors (no A/C). Right next door was Gilberts’ Drug Store. Dad was good friends with the owner Roy Gilbert and I was a close friend of Larry’s, their oldest son who was my age.
When you walked in the store the first thing you saw was a mirror reflecting your image with a sign that read ‘Our most important customer.’ Dad wanted to make people welcome. He almost always wore a white shirt and tie.
Bill Sager was the first president of the Downtown Merchants Association.
Development along Highway 27 was already making business downtown a challenge. Here is his account of its formation:
He tried to generate interest and work cooperatively with other businesses in the downtown area. One idea he pursued was to dress up for Halloween and have a parade to generate business and stir up interest in the downtown area. Dad had all the folks in the place dress up in costumes. Don ‘Pete’ Francis had a dune buggy he loaned him to ride in the parade. That was October 1964.
l-r:Bill Sager, Ether Reese, Hal Keyes
Dad had a 1953 Chevrolet pickup truck for the store that was dark green. He used it for deliveries.
Bill Sager
They had lots of fun with the store and customers. Dad told me that he sometimes sent customers who needed something he did not carry over to Peeples’ Firestone on the Circle, Carraways’ Hardware or Wolfes’ Sporting Goods across the street. They had a reciprocal type practice so that they would send people to each other’s business when they could not help them. Although they were competitors they were good neighbors and all worked together.
Once Mr. Carraway had some very nice rifles and told Dad he got a real good deal on them. When Dad looked at them and found out the price he realized that was not something he could carry. His line of firearms and ammunition was definitely entry level but well made and very affordable. Bicycles were Western Flyer and most of the other things were made under the Revelation brand.
One day a man came in with a sales pitch to sell him a sign making kit. He wasn’t intending to buy it, but the man was very insistent and asked him what he had around the place he could not sell. He said he had some old bicycles in the back that were just taking up room. So the man got out some paper and rubbery letters and spray-painted a bright colored sign to offer them for sale at a nominal price. He told Dad that he would certainly get them sold that way since his signs really worked. Dad was skeptical but lo and behold they did sell. He was very surprised. Dad bought the sign making kit and had nice signs he made not only for the store but for other purposes.
Across the street by the Nancesowee Hotel was the hearing aid store owned by Warren Melgaard. A few years ago his son Dwight told me the story he tells his financial advisor clients about how he learned about debt. He was very excited to get his first job and ran down to the store to tell his father. Mr. Melgaard listened and asked him how he was going to deliver the newspapers on his route. Dwight told him he guessed he’d need a bicycle. Mr. Melgaard told him to go across the street to the Western Auto store and talk to Mr. Sager about it. Dad asked how he could help him and he told him that he needed a bicycle. Dad asked what kind and he said he’d need to carry newspapers in it. Dad showed him a bike with baskets big enough and that seemed to fill the bill. Then Dad asked him how he would pay for it. Dwight only had a little money saved so Dad asked how much he would make on his delivery route each week. He told him and they agreed that Dwight would pay him something like $1.50 a week until the bike debt was paid. They shook hands and may have signed a paper and that’s how he learned about debt! Dwight never forgot his first Western Flyer bicycle from the Western Auto store. Many other local people got their first bicycle there.
Next door to the store was a ladies’ dress shop and I think Bob’s Men’s Wear. Dad also rented out a tandem bicycle. Here are my brothers, Willi and Tom, on it.
Probably in 1965 Dad took me with him to the Western Auto trade show in Jacksonville. I think he ordered things that he saw there that would enhance his business. I also had occasion to work at the store some. Inventory was entirely by hand in those days! Counting screws and stuff was very boring for a teenager. I learned to make change at the counter and write out receipts. Back then charge cards were used, no credit cards like we have now. I did not particularly enjoy working at the store and he was aware of my lack of enthusiasm.
Dad recollected the following: ‘I do remember near the Christmas season the Downtown Merchants Association hired a very jolly retired railroad conductor
who had never met a stranger. He was doing a wonderful job dressed as Santa and giving out candy to the the kids and finding out what they wanted for Christmas. One day I saw him coming out of the ladies beauty parlor, which I think, was right next to the Salvation Army Office, which was just up the street from the Western Auto Store, and I asked him what he was doing there as there weren’t any kids getting their hair done. He looked me right in my eyes and in his rather loud voice said, “Bill, that is a captive audience as the women are sitting and can’t very well leave, so I would give them a lollypop and ask them what they would like to have for Christmas and you wouldn’t BELIEVE some of the things they would like to be have – why it is amazing!” He was the best Santa I have ever seen and he just loved his job, which was over too soon for him.”
We even wore Western Auto pocket protectors! This is me below with my brothers, Willi and Tom in 1964.
Dad sold the store in 1967. I am pretty certain he sold it to Frances ‘Pat’ Paterson who moved it to South Ridgewood Drive. I later worked with Pat for many years at the Highlands County Property Appraiser’s office. Life is full of interesting developments. Dad told me that the store didn’t make much money and was not a success financially but it was a great experience. Being part of the local business community growing up in Sebring was a blessing.
After selling the store in 1967 Dad went to graduate school, earned his Master’s Degree, and finished out his career setting up sheltered workshops for job training, drug rehabilitation programs in the state prison in Avon Park, and working with the food stamp program in various capacities. At 91 he is still doing very well. He makes his home in Blairsville, Georgia, where he has lived for close to 30 years.
August 2018
Sebring, Florida
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