Online Group Shares Memories of Frank’s Nursery and Crafts
(Crystal A. Proxmire, Dec. 23, 2021)
Michigan – In the final decades of the 20th Century, Frank’s Nursery & Crafts stores dotted the Midwest, offering an eclectic, creative space, as their motto said, “where beautiful things begin.”
Especially around the holidays, nostalgia runs high as members of the Facebook group Franks Nursery & Crafts, Michigan share memories as well as pictures of Christmas ornaments, craft kits, ribbons, bows, silk flowers, tinsel and lights, stockings, dolls, and Santa-themed things that brought joy to countless shoppers over the years.
As the name states, Frank’s was known for having aisles of crafty components, including a large section of silk plants, a wall full of yarn in various colors and textures, paints, glues, doll rods, markers, poster board and components for creativity. The nursery part of the store offered plants for inside and out, and as the weather got cold and snowy (which it did more of in the 1980s) there were Christmas trees, wreaths, and garlands of greenery to bring some bit of nature in those chilly months.
CHRISTMASTIME IN THE RETAIL WINTER WONDERLAND
Maria Cartier-Czarnowski worked at store 74 in Sterling Heights. “One of my favorite Christmas memories was from back when the company was still family owned. Our manager would let us all come in, or stay after the store closed, on a Sunday night to decorate the artificial trees,” she said. “Some of them had a specific theme that had to be followed, but others were left up to us to decide, and for those trees, anything (within reason) was allowed.”
In the Facebook group, which has over 750 members, she shared pictures of adorable bear ornaments that she bought when she was a teenager working at the store. “I still put them on our tree forty years later. The last one is looking a little weathered, but I don’t have the heart to leave him off.”
In the 80s and 90s there wasn’t online shopping as there is today, and the rush of Christmastime consumerism made malls and retail stores famously frenzied from the day after Thanksgiving up until Christmas Eve. Franks had a steady stream of shoppers excited for the season. Then the day after Christmas was for the big clearance.
Cathy Greene told the group, “I remember my first day after Christmas as well. I had no idea what to expect. I remember getting there a half hour before opening-what, 5:30 or 6:30 am?-and there must have been 25 cars already in the lot, engines running and dark figures sitting in their seats. I had to walk in front of them and I could almost feel their eagerness to broach the wall. The manager gave me a till to count, and there were a few other hourly employees hanging out in the office drinking coffee and eating doughnuts that someone had brought in. I asked the manager what I should be doing until we opened and he said “Nothing. We just wait.”
“Eventually the mob gathered at the doors and the manager let them in. Every single one of them grabbed a shopping cart and they raced towards the Christmas area. We all stayed in the office and continued to wait. I swear, I could see dust and rolls of wrapping paper flying up into the air above the gondolas. Meanwhile, more and more customers kept rolling in and racing to the Christmas area afraid that they had missed all the good stuff.
“The initial group made their way towards the registers and I heard the manager say “Show time!” The rest of the day was a blur of department ring, price, 50% off. Department ring, price, 50% off. Three or four open registers and the lines didn’t stop until well after 1 in the afternoon.
“The second shift eventually took over and as I walked out to my car I was nearly shell shocked. But I would give almost anything to relive those days again.”
Robert Smith worked stores across the country and on various regional management teams over the years. “The thing that comes to mind about Christmas is how the stores and customers always seemed happy (of course with some exceptions).
I think that after fighting crowds to find gifts and things they “had” to buy, what they were buying at Frank’s was fun, pretty and things they “wanted” to be buying. This was across the board.”
Jen Morse worked at Frank’s for 6 years in Livonia. “I remember decorating each tree at xmas a specific theme and making giant bows to put on them. They always had beautiful hand painted ornaments. I remember ringing customers up and announcing over the p.a. “One Scotch Pine to the gate.” Her mom worked at the store as well, sharing in the seasonal delights.
The group is full of pictures of found items, and special pieces people have treasured through their lives. “I remember so well, my sister and I outside in the nursery, playing and hiding in the trees while my parents were looking around. So much fun! I also still have a ceramic church from Frank’s for Christmas that I painted. I was pretty young. I melted those little pieces of plastic for the windows since it has an interior light. I still love it so much,” said Mark Jeason.
CINNAMON AND EUCALYPTUS
For many, Frank’s memories are not just of people and products, but of scents that one never forgets. “Franks Nursery had a huge array of smells,” said a regular posted named “Yer Old Pal Norman,” aka Norm Maran.
“In the spring you could smell the fertilizer isle, the bulb isle, the bird feed dept., the chemical aisle, the live goods. When trucks arrived you could open the door of a incoming semi and experience the smell of pine bark mulch, cedar mulch, for a while we sold cocoa mulch, landscape timbers, whiskey barrels, annuals and perennials. Easter brought on the smell of tulips, lilies, and my favorite Gardenia (great gift idea there).
“Then the popularity of potpourri came on so at Easter time you had a smell, in October you had a smell, and at Christmas you had a smell. The dried flower isle was dominated by the smell of eucalyptus among other smells. At Christmas you could smell Christmas trees, grave blankets, and greens like pine and cedar rope. Inside the house plant dept. came alive again with flowers. The smell of cinnamon was in the candle isle and potpourri isle. When we refinished the floor you smelled floor stripper and floor wax.
“That question sure sent me down memory lane.”
WORK THAT NEVER FELT LIKE WORK
Shelly Tober is one of the admins for the group. “I think we can all say ‘Working for Frank’s never felt like work,’” she said “We were one big family and it was fun and we loved it. But if we think back hard enough, we all had that very angry customer, we worked those long, LONG nights, we suffered through inventory and complained about it, we had those “lazy” employees that we had to make up the slack for.
“The bottom line is we don’t focus on all those negative things because Frank’s was fun and we were a family. When I think about past jobs/coworkers, I miss and think about old times and people from Frank’s the most.
“I used to love to work the outdoor register, especially selling trees at Christmas time. After close, working in the outdoor nursery in the summer, we used to have water fights while watering the flowers. I spent many overnights putting away a truck and would be slap happy by 3 am everything was funny.
“There was inventory back in the day when we had to count every single silk flower by hand, or floss, I hated getting stuck counting that.
“I remember having “contests” with other cashiers the day after Christmas to see who could ring the most customers. When I started with Frank’s, to ring a sale you would enter a department number and price, then we graduated to ringing the SKU number and the price would pop up. We thought that was cool, and how many did you try to memorize?”
Tober remembered the conversion to scanners, which timed with a Michigan law stating that incorrect prices also required giving additional refunds. “Wait, scanners? Well we all know the rest. Remember pricing? Everything had to have a price? Or just a tag on the shelf? Oh wait, a certain percent had to be priced with a tag. And the price adjustments we would have. How many up to $5.00 did you do returns for?
“Oh the bad came with the good but it was a company that let us be a family. That is what Frank’s was. I am glad they hired me for my first job in 1986.”
WHERE BEAUTIFUL THINGS BEGAN
John Greene met his wife Cathy when she started working at Store 26 in Columbus in 1982. “I remember that I had just unloaded a truck and was headed to the office to turn in the paperwork when I saw her for the first time as she was clocking in.
My heart started beating like one of those cartoon characters in a Loony Tunes cartoon. I immediately turned around and walked away, afraid that I would make a bad first impression. I told myself to calm down because she was surely married or had a boyfriend.
Later that day I asked the store manager if he knew whether she was married or not and he said that as far as he knew she was not. Eventually I found out that she was also not romantically involved, and after 6 months of screwing up my courage I finally asked her out. We were married in 1986 and are still together. I love her more with each passing day and consider myself to be the luckiest man alive.
Beautiful things really did begin at Frank’s.”
Frank’s Nursery & Crafts helped Oakland County Times get our start too. I’m the editor and publisher of this site, and I am full of gratitude that I grew up in such a perfect place.
I was raised by a single dad, who managed stores at 9 Mile and Kelly and 8 Mile and Schoenherr. In the absence of childcare my dad simply took me to work with him.
I spent hours searching through houseplants picking dead leaves and checking for dry soil. Outside in the spring I’d trim mold from flats of marigolds and pop faded blossoms from geraniums.
Frank’s Nursery & Crafts was my jungle to explore. And the pallets full of topsoil, mulch, and fertilizer were castles for me to climb on and hide it.
Often I’d be in the break room, learning about life from employees on their breaks while I colored pictures and wrote stories on the back of planting guides and sales fliers. My first magazines were made here, and lunch break interviews were part of them. The company was very family-focused and they published newsletters with pictures, birth and wedding announcements, and little stories from the various locations. I would make a kid-drawn version for our store, sharing stories and tips from “co-workers” of all ages and backgrounds.
As I got older Lisa Frank was all the rage, and my early double-digits were adorned with bright stickers and happy animals. And I became expert at making wreathes and bows and silk flower arrangements.
I loved to count and organize things, so whenever anyone would mess up the aisle of rainbow DMC floss, or the yarn, or packets of seeds, my dad would put me to work.
My senior year in high school I worked at 18 and Dequindre in the houseplant department before transferring to the Plainfield Store in Grand Rapids when I went to college. My life is like Frank’s Nursery & Crafts, a mix of delighting in nature and the creative joy of producing a beautiful website full of stories.
I don’t know how life would have been different if I didn’t grow up in the most creative store ever, and like the hundreds of others in the Facebook group I am so glad for those memories.
Writer Cheryl Weiss also has been shaped by her creative FNC past.
“When I was a little girl in the 1970’s, one of my favorite places was Frank’s Nursery in Oak Park at Nine Mile and Coolidge. My mom and I went there often; even at the age of five or six I loved being creative and making art projects. Mom was always making something, from black velvet paint by number kits to crocheting silvery wire and colorful beads into sparkly rings to sand art, or sand paintings as we called them then. Gifts to family and friends were often handmade things, and Frank’s was the perfect place for that.
“Our favorite craft, I think, was the Lil Missy beaded doll kits. From the time I could barely poke a pin into the Styrofoam base, to my early teen years, I loved putting pieces together, threading beads on pins to create a doll my mom and I made together. We had almost all of them; the blue policewoman, the winter queen, the Native American, the southern belle, and so many more. I saved every one until they fell apart….I may still have one tucked away for safekeeping.
“But Christmas…Christmas was the best time to be at Frank’s Nursery! I would love going there after school or on weekends to gaze at the aisles of sparkly garland, the beautiful angels and stars for the top of the Christmas trees, the lights so bright and happy, the silvery icicles, and the array of ornaments. We had an aluminum Christmas tree with blue garland and a very 70’s coral colored Star of David at the top, I loved that tree. Sadly it was a casualty of the Great Flood of 2014).
“It was our tradition to buy one new ornament every year, and we always bought ornaments from Frank’s. It was always hard to choose just one, and sometimes one ended up being a few.
“There were the plastic ones: the candle, the Santa on the rooftop, and the angel. Our favorites, though, were and still are the wooden ornaments that came in a box with paint. There were 18 in a box, I think, so 9 for each of us to paint. Mom bought it in 1974, the year I had my tonsils out as a way to keep me occupied while I recovered. We still have many of those ornaments and they are still on our trees every year. Frank’s always had such wonderful craft kits like that!
“One of the funny memories I have of the Oak Park Frank’s is from when I was in kindergarten or first grade. I had a student teacher at school that I loved, I thought she was really cool. I wish I remembered her name now…Candy, maybe? Anyway, to my surprise, when Mom and I went to Frank’s after school one day, there was my student teacher, working there! I was so confused! I thought she was a teacher, but she gets to work at Frank’s TOO?! That put her coolness rank off the charts.
“When I think about the hours spent at Frank’s, from buying my first pink polka dotted houseplant when I was in elementary school, to the sand paintings I made, the paint by numbers I did, the ornaments I chose and made, the mountain of craft supplies I always had on my little table in the corner of the living room, and the fun spent with my mom, I feel both joy and sadness. I miss Frank’s. I will always miss Frank’s. The memories, though, are priceless and make me smile. I am so glad that I was a child when Frank’s was here in Oak Park. I can’t imagine what my childhood would have been like without it.”
Frank’s began in in 1942 as a food market started by Frank Sherr and his nephew-in-law Max Weinberg on the northwest side of Detroit. In 1949 they added a greenhouse and began selling landscaping supplies. The cyclical nature of the business led them to add one store in 1966 that only sold craft products, called Franks Trim. The craft concept gradually merged with the nursery businesses and by 1980 the company changed its name to reflect the confluence of both – becoming Frank’s Nursery & Crafts. In 1990 they began opening seasonal stores called Christmas by Frank’s, with 100 temporary stores in 1991. They expanded into the South, and did not have much success. In 2001 they first claimed bankruptcy and in Sept. 2004 all 170 locations were closed. 2,800 people had been working there at the time.
Admin. Patrick St. John worked at corporate headquarters from 1968 up until the company closed in 2004. “I began in advertising and ended up in human resources. I was the company photographer, and eventually the editor of the monthly newsletter and other publications. What I liked most was getting to meet so many people at all levels, from the newest store employees to the founder of the company, Max Weinberg.”
Like many in Franks Nursery & Crafts, Michigan, Barbara Dechter appreciates having a place to share. “It seems this year, more than ever, that Frank’s is missed, probably because it was a place of joy. This year there is so little joy in our world that we appreciate those places that made us smile. Wish it was still around!”
Check out more and share your memories at Franks Nursery & Crafts, Michigan on Facebook.
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