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Lee’s Variety Celebrates Twenty-Fifth AnniversaryLee's Variety, also sometimes called the dime-store, is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this week....Mr.. ..Lee ... Vriezelaar, -owner of Lee's Variety, purchased the store from Herman Vos in 1947. At that time the store consisted only of the west half of the present facilities. The purchase in 1956 of the Leonard Allen business adjacent to Lee’s, which was also a variety store, caused the facilities to double in size and an addition in 1966 built on to the rear of the store again nearly doubled the available floor space, bringing the store to its present size.According to Mr. Vriezelaar, as far as he knows a store of the general merchantile type has been at that same location ever since at least 1900.With the additions in floor space the store has also continually offered a wider range of products to its costumers. Since the last expansion in 1966, complete fabrics, ready-to-wear, and baby departments have been added to the already wide variety of departments.The store being first operated by Lee and his wife Mary Lou, who still spends most of her time* at the store, there are twoemployees who have worked there almost the whole time Lee has owned the store. Agnes Mathes has worked for Lee’s Variety -for a, total of twenty-one years while Esther Van Houweling has worked there for twenty years. Reuben Buwalda, who became manager of the store in 1967, has about twelve years of experience with the firm. At present Lee’s employes twelve persons.Reuben started working for Lee’s Variety when he was just 14 years of age, most of his duties consisting of sweeping-out the store and general clean-up after schools and Saturdays. After finishing high school at Pella High, Reuben attended and graduated from Northeast Missouri State College. Even while he was in college, he worked at the store during breaks and in the summer.Following his college years, Reuben worked for IBM in Cedar ‘Rapids for a period of three years before Lee offered him the job of manager of Lee’s Variety in 1967,WE CANMOTOR
Newspaper Details
Pella Chronicle Advertiser
Pella, Iowa, US
Wed, Apr 26, 1972
Page 13
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 21 May 2025
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