Ed Doehring and his daughter Caitlin Doehring in the Maple Avenue Furniture Store, which is celebrating 50 years in business this month. - NEWS PHOTO SAMANTHA JOHNSON
reporter@medicinehatnews.com
Maple Avenue Furniture opened in 1972 and is celebrating 50 years in business this month.
“We were farmers and ranchers at the time,” said owner Ed Doehring. “My dad was an upholster by trade and my mother worked in my uncle’s furniture store, Bauer Furniture. Bauer’s burnt down and people were after my dad to do upholstery work because he did that whenever there wasn’t work to be done on the farm.”
The family ran into hardships and had to sell some of their land in 1972. Once harvest was done, they bought a building on North Railway Street from a gentleman who was good enough to sell with no money down and on a handshake.
“I was younger then,” said Doehring. “But I worked in the shop right from the beginning, taking apart furniture and helping my dad build furniture because we custom made it.”
The family also started selling furniture from a couple manufacturers, and in the 1980s bought a couple old buildings on Maple Avenue, where they were able to stock flooring as it had more space. Eventually, they closed the store on North Railway as it was getting hard on everyone to be working all the time.
His parents retired when his mother got terminally ill with pulmonary fibrosis and this resulted Doehring’s Furniture having to be sold. Doehring stuck with the flooring and slowly built up the furniture side again.
“We are third generation,” said Doehring. “It started out with my parents, Helmut and Elfriede, and myself. Now my daughter Caitlin is pretty much in charge of everything when I’m not available.”
Fifty years is a long time and Doehring says he knows he should be retired. He goes to Arizona each year for six months from the beginning of November until the end of April.
The last couple of years have been rough on the Doehring family. Two years ago he lost his wife in a motorcycle accident when the brakes on her Harley failed. This year he lost everything except his house during the tornado in July.
“I had a large car collection, seven of them were totalled off and the other 11 are repairable,” he said. “Five others didn’t have insurance, but we just have to move forward.”
