THREE-GENERATION BUSINESSES: IN SOME FAMILIES A PARTICULAR BUSINESS SEEMS TO BE PART OF THE GENETIC MAKEUP

Bern Lang spent much of his childhood playing behind the display case at his father's downtown jewelry store. As he grew older, he cleaned the sinks and swept up at the end of the day. Eventually he began selling jewelry.

Bern's son, Roger, spent much of his childhood playing behind the display case. As Roger grew older, he cleaned the sinks and swept up at the end of the day. Eventually he began selling jewelry.

Like the many other third generation businesses operating in Cape Girardeau, Lang's Jewelry, 126 N. Main, is an example of how a family business can help keep the family together.

In 1905, Bern's father, Hugo Lang, was an apprentice at the Nick Weiler Jewelry Store. The senior Lang bought the store May 16, 1916, and operated the business until 1955, when his two sons Hugo and Bern took over. Now, Bern's son Roger is working at the store.

The business has remained at the same North Main Street site all these years. The display case on the north wall of the store is original to the store.

Over the years, the number of jewelry stores in Cape Girardeau has grown.

"Jewelry stores in Cape Girardeau are like gas stations in other towns," Bern Lang said. "There are five downtown."

The key to Lang's success stems from its history.

"I've got customers coming in now," Lang said, that "their parents came in and their parents came in. People get attached to a jewelry store and stick with it."

The Langs said service is also a key. They stick with tried and true products and repair whatever they sell.

As a young man, Roger Lang thought he wouldn't go into the family business. He studied architecture and served in the military. But the call of the family business remained strong and he returned to that same display case where he played as a boy.

Often as generations progress, a family business grows.

Harry Rust, owner of Rust & Martin, learned about the furniture business from his father, studied interior design and had a vision for something bigger.

Rust & Martin started as a depression-era upholstery and refinishing shop. Today the store offers a full-line of furnishing and custom interior design from three stores in two states.

In 1933 Wayne Rust and Bud Martin came to Cape Girardeau from Michigan and established Rust & Martin. When Martin died, Rust purchased his interest.

Harry Rust spent lots of time in the business as a youngster, but considered pursuing architecture as a career. A scholarship offer to the New York School of Interior Design changed his mind. After school he returned to Cape Girardeau and set up a small design studio with his father. Soon they purchased a defunct furniture store and began expanding.

Rust's three sons, Stephen, David and Michael, all work in the business.

"To earn spending money as teen-agers they worked at the store," Rust said.

But the children weren't pushed to follow the family business. "Each one elected to do so on his own," he said.

Stephen operates the Columbia store; Mike, the Cape Girardeau store and David, the Paducah, Ky., store. Their wives also work at the store.

And Mike's three children spend time in the store.

"We let them help tag things or clean the warehouse to keep them busy," Rust said.

Rust said the best thing about a family business is that everyone works for the same goal.

"The real disadvantage is that when we get together for a family holiday, all we talk about is business," he said.

A family business does keep a family close, said L.J. "Freck" Shivelbine.

Members of the Shivelbine family are musical roadies. They travel thousands of miles each year selling musical instruments and supplies to more than 100 schools in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Kentucky.

Shivelbine's Music Store Inc. originally opened in 1934 as a branch store of the St. Louis Band Instrument Co. and was managed by R.F. "Peg" Meyer.

In January 1947, Meyer and William A. Shivelbine formed a partnership to buy the store, which operated until Aug. 1, 1949. Meyer sold his half of the partnership, and Shivelbine's son, L.J. Shivelbine, entered the business. William Shivelbine died two months later.

L.J. Shivelbine's brother, Bill, moved back to Cape Girardeau from Texas and joined the business.

"We operated as a partnership, then a corporation until his death," he said.

When brother Bill died, his son, Billy, took over his portion of the business. Technically two businesses operate at the same site, but it's all in the family. L.J. Shivelbine's sons, Mike, Scott and Greg, all work in the store.

"It's rather a unique situation for family members to be able get along, I guess," L.J. Shivelbine said. "My brother and I did for many years. My kids seem to, and they get along with their cousin Billy. We are really a close family, and each one respects the other."

L.J. Shivelbine retired Jan. 1, but he still checks in on the business regularly.

"I do own the building," he said with a laugh. "I have to make sure it hasn't been torn down."

In some families a particular business seems to be part of the genetic makeup of a family.

Payton Patrick, better known as Pat Patrick, and his son, David Patrick, have operated furniture businesses in competition with each other just about a mile apart for 20 years.

Pat Patrick's father, Bill Patrick started Patrick's New and Used Furniture in 1925 on South Sprigg Street. Four years later, Bill Patrick sold the store and became a minister.

But Pat Patrick's grandfather, uncles and cousins all worked in the furniture business. The Patricks seem destined to sell sofas.

In 1950, Pat Patrick bought his grandfather's Cape Girardeau furniture store, Townsend Furniture, and renamed it Patrick's Furniture.

He has retired from daily operation at Patrick's. His oldest daughter and her husband run the store, but he checks in on the store and with David Patrick nearly every day.

David Patrick remembers dusting the furniture every Saturday in his father's store.

"It was before I could see the top of the chests," he said. "I had a little stool I carried around with me."

By the time he was 10, he uncrated furniture. At age 15, he delivered furniture and by age 20 he sold furniture.

He graduated from college in 1970 and managed his father's store.

"I came in with all these ideas of what I wanted to change," David Patrick said. "Dad had just gotten comfortable with the business."

David Patrick decided to start his own business. In 1975, he opened Sleepy Hollow Slumber Shop. In 1975, speciality stores were emerging -- dinette shops, lamp shops and sleep shops.

Later he introduced waterbeds, then contemporary furniture and eventually offered a full-line of furniture.

On Aug. 1, 1993, Sleepy Hollow burned. David Patrick surveyed the damage and hours later set up an office in an undamaged building on the lot. His father was on the scene, even before David Patrick.

"I guess I never thought about closing up," David Patrick said. Sleepy Hollow is back at its original site, but David Patrick is finishing an 18,000-square-foot expansion.

David Patrick has three sons and a daughter.

"I hope one day to see a fourth and a fifth generation of my family in the furniture business," he said.