Editors note: Two weeks ago, the Wilcox Furniture stores in Hermiston and around the region closed after more than 60 years in business. Pat  Wilcox Kennedy, daughter of Charles Bennett Wilcox, who founded the business, remembers her time in Hermiston and how the business came to be.

I want to write about my father, and his life before he was sadly stricken by Alzheimers. This story could also sound like a near-to-truth-life of one of your loved ones.

 My father, Charles Bennett Wilcox, was born near Oakland, Ore., in 1909, in the same farmhouse in the very same bed as his father, Robert Bennett Wilcox, who was born in 1879.

Charles met and married Tressie V. Allstott of Eightmile, Morrow County, in October 1929, two weeks before Black Tuesday and the start of the Great Depression. During their first year of marriage, months were spent at Tamarack Mountain, with only two tents for their living quarters close to a 93-foot tall pine tree. A platform was built around the top part of the tree, which was Charles Forest Service lookout tower. Charles attended college at Oregon State, and also a radio school in Portland, before starting his home radio repair shop in in Heppner.

I can remember being told over and over as a child to not step on or play around the radio parts which that laid out on and all across the floor, waiting to be reassembled for a paying customers during those lean depression years.

 In 1935, Charles, Tressie and their three children, Pat, Robert and Otis, moved to Hermiston along with parents and siblings. Charles worked for L. A. Moores Mor-Tone Sound Service for a number of winters, returning to his Forest Service work in the summers. The Mor-Tone Sound Service was a small, one-room building adjacent to the Oasis Theatre. It was mainly an electronics and radio repair shop; but they also sold oil home heating stoves and radios, and rented out refrigerators.

About 1941, Charles went to work full time for L. A. Moore and also helped in the rebuilding of the sound system of the Oasis Theatre.

During World War II, radios were impossible to buy and everyone wanted to listen to the daily war news and the Amos n Andy programs in the evenings. Charles was a very handy person in the radio and electronics field and could repair any broken-down radio. He kept many of the Umatilla and Morrow County residents happy with their good-working radios, new tubes and repaired tubes.

Also during WWII, Charles became manager of the Moore Furniture of Home Store and was making a good salary. Like all residents of Hermiston, he rented out all the bedrooms to workers of the Umatilla Ordnance Depot, as the thousands of igloos were being built.Children slept on the front screened-in porch. With that extra income, plus Tressie working as a nurse at the old local hospital and the sons delivering morning newspapers and me working at the Oasis Theatre, the monthly wages and savings were plenty. Those savings later helped start the first Wilcox appliance store in Hermiston.

Hermiston Herald, Dec. 28, 1950: New Store Rises on West Side Hermiston will have a new appliance store next March if construction of a building by Charlie Wilcox continues as fast as they have been in the last 10 days or so. Wilcox is building a one-story structure on Hermiston Avenue north of Greens Frozen Food Lockers building that he expects to finish by next March. He will do much of the construction work himself and then operate the store. The 25 by 60 foot structure will be modern in appearance and the articles on sale will be of the latest design, he said. A building permit issued to him by the city recorders office listed the estimated cost at $7,500.

 If I remember right the Shockman Brothers used cement blocks for the back, front and sides of the building. Most likely roofing was hired out, but my father (Charles) did all of the finish inside work. Then he worked with companies, such as G.E. and Philco, to decide which appliances to sell in his store. Then the ordering began.

He did not have the cash to buy the appliances, as all his money had gone into the building. The banks in Pendleton would not give him a loan. So he asked his uncle, Lawrence Palmer in Heppner, if he would loan him some money.

Why, sure Charlie, he said, and the deal was made. One year later the Pendleton Banks were begging to handle all of Charless sale contracts. No deal, he did business with the Hermiston banks only.

 The population shifts of the 1940s to 1960s brought many people into the Hermiston area due to the building of Umatilla Depot and McNary Dam. Those were boom years for the area. The postwar period marked the appliances arrival, making life easier, more comfortable and modern. No more wringer washing machines. Now you could buy automatic washers, electric ranges, food freezers, clothes dryers, radios, Console-Radio-Phonograph and television!

 Hermiston Herald, March 29, 1951: Wilcox to Open Store April 4 Grand opening of the Wilcox Home Appliance store on Hermiston Avenue next to Greens Frozen Food Lockers for Wednesday, April 4, was announced today by the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wilcox. The opening is scheduled for 9 oclock. Shirley Hanson, Philcos famed home economist, will be at the store April 4 and 5 to demonstrate all Philco appliances. The store will feature Philco and General Electric appliances and radios.

 Hermiston Herald, Aug. 14, 1952: TV Set on Display in Front Window of Wilcox Appliance Wilcox home appliance store now has a Philco television set on display in their window and expect to be hooked up in the near future. Though TV programs have trouble scooting over the mountains to Hermiston, at least one TV fan in this area has been getting 60 percent reception, and better results are continuing to be reported. Charlie Wilcox, owner of the appliance store, states that he will put up a 50-foot TV antenna as soon as possible, and expects to get at least 80 percent reception.

Their home turned into a theatre after Charles installed a 50-foot antenna in our side yard. If I remember right, there were only programs shown at night, so we all sat around the TV set in our front room, watching snowflakes turning into a slight picture.

These pictures and forms became more real, more to be seen and heard, until the day came that we had pure 100% black and white television and sound. I think there was also a tall antenna installed at the store, so crowds of people would stand and watch the TV reception.

Everyone in the family was working in the delivery of appliances and TVs and the installation of antennas on all the houses. It was quite a sight seeing those antennas of all shapes, sizes and locations, all over the homes in Hermiston.

 In December 1952 telecasting arrived from Spokane, Wash., by way of Channel 6. The Pasco, Wash., stations KIMA and KEPR were ultra high-frequency stations that hit the airwaves, with full broadcasting of the Orange and Rose bowl football games in January 1955.

 The Wilcox store added a wing to the building, a 30×25 foot wing, for storage space and a warehouse, in August 1953. Later Charles, bought the large Greens Frozen Lockers building, which was quite a job in tearing down all those inside padded lockers, where many deer and elk were once hurried to the lockers during the hunting season. A full line of furniture was added to the store in this new large area.

 Charles needed help in the Wilcox store and his brother, Lester Spike Wilcox, who was teaching in Gold Hill, Ore., moved with his family to Hermiston in September 1952 to teach eighth grade in Echo. Lester worked part time at the Wilcox store for a year and a half and went to full time work at the store in January 1955.

 I believe Lester Wilcox bought the Wilcox store from his brother in about 1960. I do know that the Wilcox Furniture Companys store was destroyed by fire on the morning of Jan. 27, 1972.

Lester and Charles Wilcox are buried in the Hermiston Cemetery. Charles and Lester loved to hunt deer and elk and most of all Charles loved fishing in the river and streams in the Hermiston and Heppner area. Both of the brothers were hard-working, honest men and great businessmen to their many customers in both Umatilla and Morrow counties.