Sharon Fiffer
My parents bought all their furniture at Turk on Schuyler Avenue in downtown Kankakee. Oh there might have been the odd piece from Lassers or even Sears, but Don and Nellie, proud owners of the E Z Way Inn, bought good furniture that would last. And that usually meant a trip to Turk. Or Turk's, as my mother always called it, adding the S.
My mother was a stickler for quality. She may not have been formal or fancy as the chief cook and bottle washer at the E Z Way, but she knew good construction, sturdy fabric and style as the Better Homes and Gardens magazines on our coffee table demonstrated. She was as house proud as they come, even if she never entertained.
I asked once why she and my dad never had any company over. "I get enough of people all day long at the tavern," Nellie told me. So as far as I remember, no one except my brother and I sat on our Early American sectional. My dad preferred his recliner.
Sifting through boxes of my parents' odds and ends, I found two account books from Turk for 1960 and 1961. And an old bill of sale. In one book, they agreed to pay $50 a month for two years, and the payments are recorded faithfully until the final "Pd in full" entry. I checked and that $50 would be about $447 today. Turk did not sell bargain furniture.
Much to my embarrassment when I shopped with my mother for a large purchase, she often asked the salesperson to "throw something in," since she was spending so much money. I hid behind a chest of drawers. However, her "never-hurts-to-ask-all-they-can-do-is-say-no-negotiation" often worked. I remember a lovely table lamp and a multi-spindled magazine rack she received from a grateful (or possibly intimidated) salesman.
But the last free gift my mother received as an appreciation from the store was a spoon I still use with the engraved "Turk Furniture" now very faint. I like to think they started stockpiling the spoons as a response to people like my mother who asked for something to be "thrown in."
"Sure, here you go, have a spoon!"
My dad, who had a nightly vanilla ice cream habit, frequently remarked that this spoon, which he called an “ice cream shovel,” was the best scoop we ever had.
"It ought to be," Nellie always answered. "It cost enough."