BROWNSTOWN
Taking over a business that has been around for 130 years and continuing a legacy could be a tall task.
But if anyone is capable of doing it, it’s Bobby Eldridge.
The Crothersville native and his wife, Dawn, have worked with people to order the perfect dress or floral arrangement from Prestigious Affairs in Seymour for 20-plus years.
Also, he was inducted into the American Institute of Floral Designers, has made multiple trips to California to work on floats for the Tournament of Roses Parade and earned the opportunity to make flowers for President Donald Trump’s inaugural balls in Washington, D.C.
Before starting his own business, Bobby spent time off and on helping at Brownstown Greenhouse and Gifts.
As of Jan. 1, he is back there, this time as the owner. The previous owners, Wayne and Judy Gilbert, retired Dec. 31. The Schwein family started the business in 1890 and maintained ownership until the 1980s when the Gilberts took over.
“I am super excited. Words cannot even explain this,” Bobby said of being able to run Brownstown Greenhouse and Gifts along with Prestigious Affairs and The Flower Cart by Prestigious Affairs.
“Especially having a personal connection of being friends with them, not just walking in, we have a friendship, and I’m going to continue the legacy they have worked to build,” he said.
The Gilberts are happy to see Brownstown Greenhouse keep serving Jackson County.
“One of me and Bobby’s main concerns was that they continue an entity of a flower shop in Brownstown, just carrying on a nonfamily tradition,” Wayne said.
“We’re not worried because Bobby has come in and helped us before, so we’re not one bit concerned,” Judy said.
The shop was closed a couple of days this week to redo the showroom in preparation of reopening at 10 a.m. Monday.
“It’s just a good fit to take it to the next step. It just all fell into place,” Bobby said. “We are excited about this new chapter in our lives and the new beginning of 2021. We look forward to continuing our great customer service and southern hospitality.”
Brownstown Greenhouse started in 1890 when William Schwein III built a small greenhouse at the homestead at 120 S. Jackson St. His specialty was vegetable plants, but he also grew geraniums.
In 1922, his son, William Schwein IV, and his wife, Frankie, built a larger greenhouse at 115 S. Sugar St., where they grew flowering pot plants, vegetable plants and flowers for cut flower arrangements for weddings and funerals.
As the business grew, the family became a member of the Florists’ Telegraph Delivery Association, allowing the business to wire and accept orders worldwide.
In 1943, another one of William and Frankie’s sons, Melvin, and his wife, Irene, joined the business. A new greenhouse and showroom was built in 1950 at 415 N. Main St., which remains the shop’s location, and expanded into more floral lines. That included foliage plants and a gift and bridal room.
William and Frankie retired in 1960, and Irene and Melvin became sole owners and managers in 1965.
After Melvin died in 1977, Irene and her son, Tom, continued to operate the shop. Finally, in 1985, the business was leased and later sold to the Gilberts.
Wayne and Judy are both natives of Medora and still live in the small southwestern Jackson County community. They were high school sweethearts and married in 1958.
Wayne started in the floral business in 1961.
“It was a fluke, really,” he said. “After I got out of the Army, I was selling floor brushes door to door. My territory was all of southern Indiana. I had been putting out applications because I could see the handwriting on the wall that that particular business was not going to be a big moneymaker with my limited sales skills.”
He and Judy were living in Hanover at the time, and a flower shop in Madison was among the places he applied to work.
“I went in there and (the owner) basically hired me on the spot for $1.26 an hour,” Wayne said. “No benefits. No 401K. No holidays. If I took time off, it was on my nickel.”
He wound up working for a handful of retail flower shops throughout Indiana. He became connected to Brownstown Greenhouse while working at a shop in Noblesville and Irene asked him to come down to help with funeral flowers for eight family members who had died in a house fire.
“To handle that extra business, she called me at that shop up there that I was working at, could I come down here and help them out over that weekend,” Wayne said. “We worked all of that day and way up until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning doing that family’s funeral (flowers).”
They maintained in contact over the years, and then the Gilberts agreed to take over the business.
They had numerous part- and full-time employees, and Wayne said it wasn’t unusual to have 17 people working on the peak holiday times, particularly Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
“As a small mom-and-pop shop, you’re trained and able to do just about any job in the business, from selling flowers over the phone to fulfilling the order, making the orders up and delivering them and billing them out at the end of the billing period or putting them on credit cards,” Wayne said.
Wayne became a certified floral designer through FTD, and Judy went from working 12 years for the Noblesville Daily Ledger to learning the trade on the job. She, however, had experience with running a wedding business in Noblesville.
Judy preferred working with the public, while Wayne liked working at the design counter.
“Fortunately, God blessed us in that the parts of the business that she can’t do, I would do,” Wayne said. “Her strong suit was weddings and corsages, whereas my strong suit was doing funeral flowers for the family in their time of grief. We each kind of had our own little areas that we migrated to and developed our skills accordingly.”
Judy said Brownstown Greenhouse’s reputation grew to the point that it handled flowers for weddings outside the county, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Illinois, and Oxford, Ohio.
“Your reputation precedes you,” Judy said.
Bobby helped at Brownstown Greenhouse off and on while working at Walmart Distribution Center in Seymour, learning a lot about the business and developing his skills.
“He learned most of the daily nuts and bolts of the business from working here, and after he retired from the distribution center, then he branched out,” Wayne said. “He was an art major in school, so he always had an artistic bent, which put him in a position to fit right into this particular industry.”
A few years ago, the Gilberts saw the Eldridges at a local restaurant and talked to them about buying the business.
After dealing with various health issues in the past two and a half years, Wayne, 83, and Judy, 81, decided it was time to pass the torch.
“We’ve always tried to put back into the county equal to what we took out as far as income,” Wayne said.
“Jackson County has been very good to us,” Judy said.