By ROD ROWE
rod.rowe@goshennews.com
November 22, 2008 11:04 pm
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Bill Stotts could be labeled Goshen’s “Mr. Hardware” as he has worked at two family-owned city hardware businesses for more than 60 years.
Stotts explained he first went to work at age 13 for Roy Mayse, who bought a hardware business at the Shoots building in 1937.
“I worked Saturdays and after school,” Stotts said, riding his bicycle downtown after school. “You could lean it against a lamppost. You didn’t need to lock it up.”
He remembers watching some of his classmates and friends walk by the Lincoln Avenue store to catch Saturday matinees at the old Lincoln Theater. And another movie-goer in those days was a fellow known as “Two-Gun Johnny,” who often wore twin toy six-shooters and had a badge — even as an adult.
“If the movie was a western and it got exciting, sometimes Johnny would stand up in the theater and join in the shooting,” Stotts explained.
Johnny Cripe was a familiar sight for more than 40 years, walking along city sidewalks, looking into the gutters for anything of value. He lived out his last years at a West Lincoln Avenue nursing home; that building is now the Goshen Housing Authority.
Mayse built a new hardware store in 1954 at 720 Lincolnway East and Stotts remembers helping move the downtown business out to the east side.
“That was quite a year,” he said. “At one time I thought I’d like a hardware of my own,” but he explained the rules and regulations such as in the gun business helped him change his mind.
The business was passed to Roy’s son, Bill Mayse, who ran it for many years, and then for the last 10 years operated by Bill’s son-in-law, Dave Rhudy.
“Roy was like a father to me,” Stotts explained, and the Mayse family had a cottage next to the Stotts family on Tippecanoe Lake.
Over the years, Stotts said he has enjoyed fishing at the lake and these days fishes with his son and 8-year-old grandson, Derrick. Derrick has an older sister, Jordon.
The Goshen Hardware closed June 15, 2004, he explained. The building was used for a time as a grocery store, but fire destroyed it in the summer of 2007.
After the business closed in 2004, Stotts said he received a telephone message from John Hall, who operates the downtown True Value hardware. He said Hall told him he didn’t want to take him away from his time at Lake Tippecanoe, but “after two weeks, I was so bored.”
Stotts soon went back to work June 30 — for Hall — working three or four days a week and filling in when others take vacations.
He explained he likes to work at stocking the shelves, so he can learn where everything is in the store. The expanded hardware — now in three buildings on South Main — has 65,000 items. The store still stocks baling hooks, he said, which are not sold very often, but now has clothing and metric-sized bolts and nuts, with regular and fine threads.
Some of the biggest changes over the years has been in the area of bolts, plumbing supplies and paints, he said. “There have been a lot of changes.”Born July 4
Stotts explained he was born July 4, 1929. “My mother said it was hot that day,” he said with a laugh. He explained he grew up in a house on Seventh Street and his family built the two-story cottage at Tippy Lake in 1921.
Stotts remembers the rationing during World War II, when coupons were needed to buy gasoline, sugar, nylons, coffee and bananas.
“One time my dad got a whole bunch of bananas and we took it to the basement, where we could just pull off a banana when we wanted one. Those were the good old days,” he remembers.
The family attended the church at Fifth and Lincoln but with gas rationing after 1942, “Dad said we could walk to the Plymouth United Church of Christ,” so the family changed churches.
And Stotts was married at that church to Ruby Zimmerman, a Kansas native, in June, 1958. They raised two daughters, Cheryl and Carla, and a son, David. David has the two grandchildren, Jordon and Derrick. Ruby died in May 2001, and Stotts remains at the home they bought at 112 W. Purl St. He usually walks home for lunch while working downtown, just four blocks away.Divided Property
After his parents died, Stotts divided the two homes with his younger brother, Phil, with Phil taking the Seventh Street house and Bill getting the cottage.
Stotts graduated from Goshen High School in 1947 and took a one-year business course at the South Bend College of Commerce. He did not play in sports, as he worked in high school.
He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1951, serving in the 185th signal corps. He was stationed at four or five U.S. bases, but did not get sent to Korea in the two years he served. When on leave, he usually worked for a time at the hardware.
Stotts grew up with his family getting The Goshen News and its predecessor, The News-Democrat. These days, he jokes, that he first reads the list of deaths on page one, often knowing the people who lived here and were his customers. He now stacks up the papers for a week or so at a time, to allow his daughter to use them and clip things she may be interested in.
His travels have included visiting his wife’s relatives in Kansas, Illinois and Pennsylvania, and he attended spring and fall hardware stores for many years, helping with buying for Mayse’ store.
Mayse told Stotts, “You know the inventory. You know what we need.”
The family reunions are held on alternate years, Zimmermans one year and the Troyers the next.
Stotts said he collected stamps for a time, and delivered the stamps when they were used as a fund-raiser for The Window.
He now works at collecting aluminum cans, keeping the top tabs separate for a fund-raiser for the Ronald McDonald House at Riley Children’s Hospital. He collects the tabs and gives them to Kiwanis friends, and recycles the cans to give money to his church.
Stotts has been a member of Goshen Lions Club for 36 years and has been club treasurer for 20 years. “I’m not the oldest, but the longest-term member,” he said.
“It’s a small group, but we’re still kicking,” he said. The Lions meet the first and third Tuesday each month at 6:15 p.m. at Old Country Buffet.
Stotts admits that he “is in good shape,” and when asked to what he attributes his good health, he said, “I watch what I eat. I don’t eat a lot of french fries. We grill a lot at the lake, chicken breasts and hamburgers. Plenty of vegetables. I don’t smoke.”
He said when in the military he might consume one beer and then take the role of designated driver, turning down a second drink. He hasn’t had a beer in a long time, he said.
“I feel really good.”
He explained he does not get a flu shot, but did get a pneumonia shot. “I usually get a head cold at the start of the season,” but he tries to avoid being with people who are obviously sick.
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