Pair of Hearts

Caring couple to check out of Shawnigan Lake centre

January 27, 2000

Times-Colonist

By Bill Cleverley Times Colonist staff

If a community has a heart, Shawnigan Lake’s has been thumping for the past 33½ years in the bodies of Gerry and Mary Odegaard. That’s why it came as such a shock when the community learned the couple had sold their Aitken & Fraser General Store and will officially pass the keys to new owners at the month’s call.

While the Aitken & Fraser name still stretches across the store’s roof, the business is better known in the community simply as Gerry’s—a testament to the caring way Gerry and Mary have run the business they’ve owned for more than three decades.

“His roots in this community go really, really deep,” said Jack Roozendal, long-time owner of the nearby Black Swan Pub. “He’s been an excellent, kind, fair and No. 1 person.”

Stories of Gerry’s generosity are legendary. In an era of credit checks, cash or major credit card only, the Odegaards still let people carry accounts and often have been known to let those accounts mount for months when times are tough.

“His credit system I don’t think is anybody’s business,” Roozendal said. “But he’s helped people out who are stuck. If you landed in this community here and you have no money, you go to Gerry and he’d help you out.”

A soft-spoken man with a ready smile and a firm handshake, Gerry said simply he’s only returned to the community what it has given him over the years. And while they’ve been stung sometimes, it’s the exception and not the rule.

“You’ve got to have a heart to run a business,” Mary said.

He and Mary recalled that years ago they suffered a break-in and their filing system containing 100 accounts was stolen. When word of the theft got out, just about everyone in town came in with their best recollection of what they owed so a new set of books could be started.

“We took $10 off each one to make sure we didn’t overcharge anyone,” Mary said. “But just about everyone came in. That’s where the community helped us.”

The couple’s philosophy has been to treat their staff as family and their customers as friends. It’s reflected in the store’s atmosphere, where there’s always time for conversation, there’s always time to help you find something, and there’s always a genuine smile on everyone’s face.

John Fischer, who edited the local Community Crier monthly bulletin for years, can’t say enough about the family’s contribution to the community over the years or their willingness to always take that extra step to help.

He recalls the first time he met Gerry, on a snowy evening near Christmas years past, when he was trying to find a hose clamp to hook up the dishwasher in his new house.

“Gerry came up and introduced himself and took me down to one corner of the store where he had all this old plumbing stuff. He couldn’t find it, but here’s Gerry, who I never met before in my life, who says: ‘But I might have one at home. I could go get it for you.’

“You know with Gerry what he probably would have done is gone home and taken it off his own dishwasher and brought it back,” Fischer said with a laugh.

Through his volunteer work on the Crier, Fischer got to know the Odegaards’ work in the community well.

“Virtually everything that happens in Shawnigan Lake there’s some piece of Gerry in there. There was nothing that had to do with kids or the goodwill of the community that Gerry ever said no to. He was in there all the time.”

It’s with mixed feelings the Odegaards now sell the business they’ve raised along with their family. They first said ‘no’ when approached in September by John and Susan Kim, who had been operating their own small convenience store in Chilliwack.

But the Kims kept at them, and the Odegaards’ daughter Lana Cech and her husband Dave, who had been part of the store’s management team, decided they’d rather focus on raising their two children than put in the 12- to 14-hour days it takes to run a small town general store.

Finally, in late November, the Odegaards decided to sell to the Kims, who will run it with John’s brother James and his wife Michelle.

Mary said the Kims plan to run the store as her family has. The charge accounts will remain in place (although the Odegaards will keep the ones that have been difficult to collect), and the staff have been approached by the new owners with offers to keep their jobs. Some are still undecided. The Cechs will move on to something else.

Aside from some gardening, and getting an old fibreglass boat repaired for fishing, Gerry doesn’t know what retirement will bring.

He does know he’ll miss the daily interaction with the community.

“We’re going to miss the people, the customers, and the staff,” he said.

Note: Lana Cech still works a few days a week at Aitken & Fraser store.