In June 1918, Hubert Parson purchased Shadow Lawn, a veritable palace in Elberon, New Jersey, close to the resort Asbury Park. Shadow Lawn had been used as a summer house for the American presidents, including Woodrow Wilson. Parson paid $800,000 for the mansion, with the hopes of presenting his wife, Maysie, with a proper summer cottage. As a special perk, Shadow Lawn was larger and more elaborate than Woolworth’s estate in Glen Cove. Perhaps sensing that Parson’s extravagance was destined to be the younger man’s downfall, Frank Woolworth shook his head. “I will be blamed for this,” moaned the chief.
Meanwhile, the Woolworth empire continued to rise in size and net worth, as its head steadily declined.
It was inevitable—the passing of the chief—but when it finally happened it still left millions of people in a state of suspended disbelief.
His teeth were his undoing. Over the years, Frank Woolworth had developed a morbid fear of dentistry, a paranoia which had increased after he learned that dental problems were one of the reasons for the death of his old friend, William Moore. Frank’s doctors warned him that his teeth and gums must be surgically remedied, and steady treatments instituted, lest severe septic poisoning would set in. Frank disregarded their warnings and his infections raged on.
Frank Woolworth’s last work day in his Empire Room in the Woolworth Building was April 2, 1919. Feeling under the weather, he left the office early for his Fifth Avenue home, but still managed to take care of some paperwork the following morning. By the time he reached Winfield House that Friday, Frank was complaining of a painful sore throat and experiencing severe chills. He went to bed directly after dinner, but his fever raged all weekend. On Sunday he was actually unconscious for several hours. The doctors saw the seriousness of the situation, attributing it to septic poisoning, along with gallstones and uremia. Frank’s daughters were summoned to Winfield Hall. His wife, Jennie, remained unaware, quietly seated in her rocking chair.
Frank awoke and rallied for a short time, but on Monday, he fell into a deep state of unconsciousness. He died at 1:50 A.M. on Tuesday, April 8, 1919, five days before his sixty-seventh birthday. The word spread like wildfire in the business district of New York: The King of the Five-and Dimes was dead.
On April 10, Frank Woolworth’s body was carried to New York City, where an emotional service was held in the Music Room of his Fifth Avenue mansion. The F. W. Woolworth company offices were closed for four days as employees tried to come to terms with the passing of their chief. Even S. S. Kresge, one of the all-time rivals of Frank Woolworth, closed the Kresge five-and-dimes for an hour.
Although Frank had commissioned a private mausoleum in New York’s famous Woodlawn Cemetery, it was not yet completed, so his body was placed in a private vault in another part of the grounds. In time, however, Frank would be laid to rest in the impressive Woolworth memorial in Woodlawn, a resting-place shared by hundreds of luminaries such as La Guardia, Jay Gould, William Dodge, Pulitzer, and Hammerstein. Frank’s daughters, Jessy and Helena, as well as Frank’s “unofficial son,” Hubert Parson, were the named executors of the Woolworth estate. They learned that the only legal will was the one Frank had handwritten back in 1890, before his maiden trip to Europe. The document bequeathed all of Frank’s riches to his wife, Jennie, who was now incompetent. Frank had had his lawyers draw up a new will, but he’d carried it around for months before he died, and never signed the document. It took a long time to clear up the confusion. Frank Woolworth had died a millionaire many times over; his personal property alone was worth $29 million, with additional private real estate totaling $847,000. He also owned twenty-five percent of the Woolworth Company’s common stock (another $13 million or so) and had paid for the $13.5-million Woolworth Building outright. He left behind two mansions full of priceless artifacts and artwork; his cigars alone were worth hundreds of dollars apiece. Since Jennie was still alive, and would remain so for another four years, Winfield Hall remained temporarily intact, but the Fifth Avenue mansion was mortgaged to pay for the eight million dollars worth of estate taxes. As Frank’s daughters grappled with the estate, the executives at the Woolworth Building met to decide the best strategy for carrying on.
F. W. Woolworth’s Moves Into the Modern Age
With the passing of Frank Woolworth in 1919, only three of the original founders survived: Charles Woolworth, Earle Charlton, and Fred Kirby. Charlton and Kirby remained directors and vice presidents, Charles Woolworth became chairman of the board, and Hubert T. Parson rose to the ranks of company president. Together, these men led the F. W. Woolworth Co. away from World War I, through the Great Depression, and on to the company’s fiftieth anniversary. In 1929, the company boasted 1,825 Red-Fronts and $303 million in sales. When Hubert Parson retired in 1932, Byron D. Miller stepped into the role of president. During Miller’s reign, the ten-cent price limit on merchandise was increased to twenty cents. This was a major step in bringing the F. W. Woolworth Co. into the modern age. Over the next few decades, many of the traditional concepts that Frank Woolworth had spearheaded continued to be implemented, but the company did change their marketing strategy. Ads for F. W. Woolworth Co. stores and products started appearing regularly in magazines and newspapers. Commemorative books were issued beginning in 1919 and continued to be issued ever major anniversary through the 100th in 1979. Color catalogs and mail order became commonplace. (There was even a brief foray into radio and television sponsorship.) In 1962 alone, president Robert Kirkwood approved some 40 million print lines of paid advertising. Paid advertising was one area that Frank Woolworth had always resisted, but the world was changing fast, and the F. W. Woolworth Co. executives knew they had to keep up with the times. They continued to accelerate their promotion and opened more Red-Fronts and specialty stores. By the mid-1960s, the name “Woolworth’s” was known all over the world.
Woolworth Trivia Box
The First Ten Presidents of the F. W. Woolworth Co. and the Years They Reigned
1. Frank W. Woolworth (1879–1919)
2. Hubert T. Parson (1919–1932)
3. Byron D. Miller (1932–1935)
4. Charles W. Deyo (1935–1946)
5. Alfred L. Cornwall (1946–1954)
6. James T. Leftwich (1954–1958)
7. Robert C. Kirkwood (1958–1964)
8. Lester A. Burcham (1965–1969)
9. John S. Roberts (1970–1974)
10. Edward F. Gibbons (1975–1977)
Noticeably absent among the lists that made up the company ranks throughout the twentieth century are the names of the children and grandchildren of Frank and Jennie Woolworth. Frank was survived by two daughters and six grandchildren but, as biographer James Brough pointed out, “the inheritors of his millions behaved as though they preferred to forget how it had all been made in nickels and dimes, the same source as the dividends that flowed in every three months, as dependable as a tide table.” Although Woolworth’s daughters, Jessy and Helena, served on the board of directors for many years, this was more a perfunctory privilege. Not one of Frank’s descendants took an active interest in the daily operations of the company. Instead, they pursued elaborate lifestyles, which, in some cases, were their undoing. Jessy Woolworth Donohue’s husband, James Sr., and her son, Jimmy, committed suicide. Both men lived fast lifestyles, indulging in liquor, gambling, drugs, social climbing, and a preference for young chorus boys. Jessy’s other son, Woolworth (Wooly) Donohue enjoyed the high life, especially given his marriage to Gretchen Wilson Hearst of Virginia, the former wife of John Randolf Hearst. Jessy Donohue was the most exuberant of all Frank’s daughters; she purchased several private railroad palace cars, including one called Japauldon, which she gave to her husband on a lark. She lived in Wooldon Manor in Southampton, Long Island, and had a Palm Beach mansion called Cielito Lindo. Jessy’s tastes ran to Russian sables and expensive jewelry. She died in 1971.
Barbara Hutton, born 1912, the daughter of Edna and Franklyn H. Hutton, grew up to become one of the richest women in the
world, and one of the unhappiest. After her mother Edna’s suicide, her father, Franklyn ushered Barbara off to a series of boarding schools until she came of age and inherited almost $50 million. Barbara married seven times, but died virtually alone in 1979. She did have one son, Lance Reventlow (from her marriage with Count Kurt Haugwitz-Reventlow), but Lance had died tragically in an air crash in 1972. He was thirty-six.
Woolworth heiress, Barbara Hutton welcomes her family to Paris for her wedding to Prince Alexis Mdivani in June 1933. Left to right: Wooly Donahue, Mrs. Irene Hutton (Barbara’s step-mother), Jimmy Donahue, Jessy Donahue, Barbara Hutton and her father, Franklyn Hutton. Mdivani was the first of Barbara Hutton’s seven husbands.
Frank’s eldest daughter, Helena Woolworth McCann, lived a more sedate and gracious life. The McCanns spent much of their time in their country home, Sunken Orchard, located in exclusive Oyster Bay, Long Island. Helena and Charles also devoted much of their time to fund-raising events, and for a short period, Charles McCann served on the board of directors for the F. W. Woolworth Co. Helena died in 1938. Of her three surviving children, Frazier was a gentleman farmer in Connecticut; Constance married Willis Roseter Betts Jr., and Helena married Winston Guest, a well-known polo player. All of the McCann children were considered generous. In 1963, for example, Frazier and his sister, Helena McCann Charlton, were the major contributors of the Woolworth Center of Musical Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, which they named in memory of their grandfather. However, neither Frazier, Constance, nor Helena became involved in the F. W. Woolworth Co. business.
Instead, the line of ascension at the Woolworth company was composed of the descendants of Frank Woolworth’s partners. Charles Woolworth served as board director until his death at age ninety in 1949; the final thirty years of his service the most productive and noteworthy of his career. His sons, Fred and Richard were involved with the company for many years thereafter. Carson Peck’s son, Fremont, became a director, and another Peck acted as vice president. Allan Kirby, son of Fred Kirby, and Fred Kirby II also played a role, as did Seymour Knox Jr. and Seymour Knox III. Two generations of Charlton men also followed tradition. By 1993, however, the year of the first wave of Woolworth’s Red-Front closings, not one descendant of any of the founders were sitting on the board of directors.
And what of Frank’s unofficial “son” Hubert T. Parson? Hubert and his wife Maysie continued their spendthrift lifestyles, with grand homes in Manhattan, Paris, and “Shadow Lawn” at the New Jersey shore. In 1927, Shadow Lawn burned to the ground and had to be completely rebuilt. In doing so, Parson lost control of his dreams for grandeur, and his finances. He spent $10 million on the estate’s 96 new rooms. Shortly after it was completed, he lost the property. (In 1939, the estate deeded to the Boro of Long Branch for nonpayment of taxes at the nominal bid of $100.) When he reached the age of sixty, the traditional (but flexible) “retirement” age for Woolworth’s executives, the board did not ask him to continue on. Parson died, a broken man, in 1940. Today, Shadow Lawn is the administrative office of Monmouth University, and meticulously maintained. In a fitting scenario, it was used as the set for Daddy Warbuck’s mansion (allegedly of Millionaires Row in Fifth Avenue) for the movie Annie, but Parson’s real-life home on Millionaires Row was lost during the Great Depression.
Of Frank Woolworth’s legacy, his Fifth Avenue complex was torn down in 1925, replaced by apartment houses. The Woolworth Building was sold in 1998, and its historical preservation remains uncertain. The priceless antiques of Frank’s Empire room were long ago auctioned off, except for the few in storage. Winfield Hall still survives, however. It is presently owned by a large pharmaceutical company, and still remains, as author Monica Randal said, “The grandest of grand North Shore palaces. [It is] a house that would have dazzled Gatsby himself.”
Hubert T. Parson’s estate, Shadow Lawn, was purposely designed to outshine the mansions of his mentor, Frank Woolworth. The grand foyer pictured above was featured in the film Annie (1982).
The vast 118-year-old history of the F. W. Woolworth Company was transported into the realm of nostalgia when the last of the Red-Fronts were closed in 1997 and the name of the company was changed. And although the newly structured Venator Group continues to be a force in the business world, it is a company focused on the future; its current executives prefer not to dwell on, or even remind people of, the company’s past. In spite of this, strong memories of what Frank Woolworth and his partners created still exist in the minds and hearts of millions of people. Along with these remnants from the past, we have also been left with words of wisdom from the Merchant Prince himself. A few years before Woolworth died, a reporter asked Frank to summarize the secret of his success. After much ado, he finally came up with seven business tips, which, when reviewed these ninety years later, still stand the test of time.
1. Of course you will be discouraged. But keep on.
2. If you believe in an idea, give it a chance. Some of my first stores failed because I placed them in the wrong part of town. There’s always a right location. Find it.
3. Everybody likes to make a good bargain. Let him. Small profits on an article will become big profits if you sell enough of the articles.
4. I believe in doing business by and with cash. Large credit is a temptation to careless buying.
5. Supervise details, but don’t allow them to absorb you. Don’t waste the time of a high-prized organizer on a clerk’s job.
6. I prefer the boy from the farm to the college man. The college man won’t begin at the bottom to learn the business.
7. There are plenty of opportunities today. Many young men fail because they are not willing to sacrifice. No one ever built a business on thoughts of having a good time.
Much has been written about Frank W. Woolworth over the years, attempting to unravel the complexities of the man, and the merchant. But one of the most poignant of all came from writer Frank Crane, who, back in 1919, said of Frank Winfield Woolworth: “All his wealth was built up from nickels and dimes. He saw the vast dynamic of multitudes. [Yet] it is not because of the money he accumulated that we honor him, it is because he did things; he was a creator, a maker; in him also was the unconquerable flame.”
PART THREE
REMEMBERING … THE STORES!
Chapter Eight
Those Fabulous Lunch Counters!
“Approximately 1,900 food retailing operations in Woolworth and Woolco stores across the U.S. serve over a million customers a day in settings ranging from standup snack bars to cafeterias and coffee shops with waitress service.”
—F. W. Woolworth Co. 100th Anniversary Booklet, 1979
A Little Soup With Your Parakeet?
Where in the world could you pick up a spool of thread, a tub of car wax, and, if so inclined, a green parakeet, and then dash over a few aisles for a bowl of steaming vegetable soup? At F. W. Woolworth’s of course!
It seemed like they were always there, the long lunch counters and twirling red vinyl stools; a capped waitress ready to serve up a grilled cheese sandwich or ice cream soda after a five-and-ten shopping spree. Tantalizing signs lined the back wall, heralding the daily fare: steaming coffee, malted milk shakes, apple pie á la mode, baked muffins, pizza, tuna salad with a pickle wedge, banana split house boats, fresh-squeezed orange juice, even chicken chow mein on a bun.
For cost-conscious consumers, Woolworth’s eateries were a great boon. When the company’s first official “Refreshment Rooms” opened in 1910, nothing on the menu cost over ten cents, and until World War II, hungry patrons could still get a complete meal for a quarter. It was great bargain, and remained so even after inflation made coffee 50¢ a cup, and a plate of scrambled eggs and home fries skyrocketed to $1.50.
From the beginning, resourceful managers made sure that regional favorites were available. In Georgia, one could enjoy a thick slice of peach pie; in Puerto Rico, a bowl of rice and beans; and in Tennessee, a heaping plate of biscuits and gravy. One of Santa Fe’s
best sellers was Frito Pie, a blend of spicy chili sauce, beans, and cheese, served on a bed of crunchy Frito corn chips. Indeed, when, after sixty-two years, the Santa Fe Plaza site closed in 1997, the locals were very upset. The mayor was no exception; for years, several times per week, she had enjoyed this exclusive Woolworth’s lunch treat, which had been dreamed up by a resourceful Woolworth employee. Reluctant to let the era of the five-and-dime pass, several private citizens purchased the building where Woolworth’s once existed, and reportedly there is now a small five-and-dime section still serving up tasty Frito Pie.
Woolworth’s lunch counter, c. 1945, Red Bank, N.J.
F. W. Woolworth variety stores were always located in a central area, making a trip there ultraconvenient. If you were en route to work during a frigid New England winter, you could always slip into F. W. Woolworth’s for a cup of hot coffee and an English muffin; or, if in Hollywood, you could escape the heat with a cool orangeade. From coast to coast, Woolworth’s snack bars were ready to invite you in.
TIME CAPSULE MEMORY
“Me and Gram”
When I was a child I used to go to the Woolworth’s near my house in Dover, Delaware to buy doll clothes with the money I saved. It was wonderful when my grandmother from the Bronx visited and took me, without my brother and sister, to have a special lunch at the counter. I often had grilled cheese, but the main treat was two pieces of chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream between them and topped with chocolate sauce. I don’t know what was the best part—being alone with Grandma, the thrill of eating on a stool at the lunch counter, or the great ice cream dessert!
Remembering Woolworth’s Page 18
