Marla looks quite happy now that our Wesco fabrics’ storage locker is finally empty! The story of our company began in 1946 with Marla’s parents’ venetian blind business at 30th and Larimer Street in Denver with $4000 of capital & lots of hope. We eventually grew the company to warehouses in Denver, Dallas, Irvine California, and Columbus Ohio. We had 23 salespeople, our fabric line in showrooms from the D & D Building in New York to even Singapore and Hong Kong. Our story was one of triumphs, a few potholes, risks & opportunities, memories of great and not so great times, indispenible staff, sales team, & clients from around the country,…but through it all a real adventure. We sold the company name & fabric inventory to RM Coco in 2017.

The 75,000 square foot cleanout of the offices and furniture, workroom, sewing machines, cutting tables, shipping department, basement littered with everything from family storage to old sampling, and hardest of all…dismantling 25,000 square feet of 50 year old shelving took a year during which time we sold the building. The project would not have been accomplished without Marla’s amazingly hard work! Any business records that might be needed for an audit plus miscellaneous memories were moved to this storage unit for 7 years as recommended by our accountant.

Marla looking at all the file cabinets and storage boxes filled with history before the cleanout.

I was just emotionally “done, done, done”, with the business I had given 49 1/2 years. Marla, always the sensible, smarter and patient partner in the equation, looked at the evolution as part of life.

The shredding company arrived.

For some reason Marla and I felt we had to assist with the shredding project personally even though we contracted for 100% paper removal.

And then I had an awakening! Just as I was about to hand some boxes to the shredder, I opened one and the contents hit me like a lightening bolt! I opened another and it was more of the same. I found literally thousands of photos, my early marketing campaigns, old company catalogs & flyers, fabric line sheets, sales meeting notes, and oodles more! All of this company history had to be saved at least for the time being so we could reminisce. If we weren’t personally helping the shredder all of this would have been gone! I filled my car trunk with large boxes of materials to take home for review and reflection.

I’ll do a future post with some of the interesting items I found! Stay tuned.

Marla observes our progress.

There were over 95 total bank boxes in the locker including what was in the file cabinets!

A few days later a company came to haul what was left away.

The feelings of the final few minutes in the locker.

And then we were…finished!

Photos: Dick Gentry. Not to be used without permission.