BROCKVILLE, ONT. —
A staple alongside Highway 29 for a long time, Maggio Flooring and Decorating Centre in Brockville announced on July 12 it would shut immediately so that proprietor Alice Maggio could retire.
On Saturday, Alice and her two daughters reminisced in the store more than decades’ really worth of photographs and the very first newspaper advertisement from June 4, 1977.
“We are really grateful to a community that supported Maggio Flooring for 54 years,” said Shelley Maggio. “I grew up here. There is a image of me standing beside my dad placing in a piece of turf beside the outdated creating when I was maybe four years old!”
Her father Joe Maggio, who passed away in 2019, commenced the corporation at the rear of their household in the 1960s. Shelley remembers working in the shop developing up.
“My dad’s significant factor was usually to study the back again of the samples of every thing to find out the product or service, and of program that was like having dry toast for a 14-15 yr outdated. It was not precisely enjoyable things,” she stated with a snicker.
Her sister, Catherine Maggio-Howley, also grew up with the organization.
“I would say we grew up alongside one another mainly because I was born in ’68 and he started out the small business in ’68 so I have experienced my finger in it,” Maggio-Howley explained. “I’ve been an personnel listed here on and off primarily portion time due to the fact I was 14.”
She has fond memories of when the initial creating was put up at the rear of their family’s house on Church Street.
“When dad would come down the street with the van at the end of the working day, he’d quit at the conclude of the driveway and even if there had been no children in sight, each a person of these young ones would be out there and we would all get in or on the van and maintain on the back and ride it up the driveway,” she reported.
Closing the small business following a 54-yr run was not an simple choice according to Shelley Maggio.
“Following my father handed, (my mom) tried to continue to keep it going for as a lot as she could but she’s ready to take some time off and get out from beneath a minimal bit of stress and worry,” she mentioned.
Her mother, Alice, was glowing as she mentioned the firm’s popularity.
“I can not describe it. The persons have been wonderful, which is all I can say,” she reported. “Japanese Ontario, Athens, Delta, Prescott, Cardinal, Morrisburg, Iroquois, all all over us he has carried out get the job done in their households for years.”
Alice states her partner could nonetheless try to remember just about every task he had done.
“They told him, ‘We’ve experienced that carpet,’ and Joe understood particularly what carpet he place in 20 yrs ago,” Alice said.
Joe Maggio was also a Shriner, who liked serving to kids, with Maggio Flooring sponsoring several sports teams around the many years.
“My father was just really keen on becoming in a position to assist any person that he was capable to enable and if any person arrived to him in need of just about anything, he’d give them the shirt off his back again,” stated Shelley. “He desired to be involved in the group.”
“People are pretty saddened and so are we,” additional Catherine. “It’s a incredibly bittersweet time but absolutely the correct time.
“It really is time for mother to be equipped to consider it uncomplicated. She’s searching ahead to retiring from this organization and relocating ahead and enjoying paying time with all of our children and just executing what she wants to do,” she extra.
Alice also thanked the loved ones for all of their assist in serving to run the small business considering the fact that 2019.
“I have my family, the girls and all my grandchildren and sons-in-legislation,” she reported. “My brother-in-regulation, Jim, has helped me greatly receiving by way of all of this. He ran the shop for the final calendar year and a 50 % and I can’t thank him enough as very well as all the fellas that have trapped by me.”
And she currently appreciates what her potential holds.
“A great glass of wine would be fantastic,” she said with a chuckle. “I would like he was there to have that consume of wine with me but we should transfer on.”
The staff is ending their final few installations, with liquidation planned in the future weeks.
“I just want to, from the bottom of my coronary heart, say thank you. We have unquestionably beloved getting section of your lives,” extra Catherine.
“We have had some superb personnel more than the a long time, amazing shoppers about the decades, and just definitely, really a testomony to the effective small business that my father designed,” she included. “I am going to overlook it.”