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Labor of love comes to end
By BRUCE WALTON
bwalton@vindy.com
YOUNGSTOWN
Video
Ted Gavozzi’s hands and legs are swollen and sore from decades of constructing and repairing furniture at Gavozzi Upholstery.
The business is as aged as its owner.
He said his trade is no longer needed since people don’t want to have their furniture re-covered and only want to buy new pieces.
“I could cry when I see all this stuff; it’s a shame,” he said as he looked around his workshop and its piles of wood, stuffing and unfinished projects under the dim lights.
This led Gavozzi, 89, to his final task: closing the business and selling his South Avenue building. In April, he sold it to an investor who buys old buildings to renovate them later.
For 80 years, the family upholstery business has operated on the South Side – started by his father-in-law, who then trained Gavozzi. It’s always been a labor of love.
Gavozzi loved working with his hands and has lived a life of steady work. He said the most-important lessons he learned were that you should enjoy yourself in what you do and take every day as it comes.
“That’s the biggest thing, I think – is enjoying yourself when you do something,” he said. “If you’re working at a job you don’t like – that would be horrible.”
Gavozzi was a 17-year-old who had just graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in December 1944 and had scholarships lined up to play college football. But the military drafted him into World War II. There he served in the Navy for 21⁄2 years in the Pacific Islands, including Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He worked primarily in the engine room and sometimes manned the 20- and 40 mm guns on the ship to which he was assigned.
His scariest moment was when a Japanese kamikaze pilot hit the ship while he worked in the engine room. It killed several people on deck, including the captain and the doctor.
Gavozzi married his high-school sweetheart, Florence Hubert, after returning from the war. He learned upholstery from his father-in-law, Frank Hubert, a German immigrant.
The shop, then known as Hubert Upholstery, was first located on Boston Avenue when it opened in 1936 before moving to South Avenue.
Hubert came from Germany as a harness maker, but since few people needed horses as cars became more popular, he decided to change to upholstering.
Hubert taught Gavozzi at night and on holidays when the shop was closed, so the shop wouldn’t lose money while Gavozzi was in training. Their partnership lasted for more than three decades until Hubert died in the 1970s. The business was left to Gavozzi and his brothers-in-law. He bought out the others and renamed it Gavozzi Upholstery.
Keeping a business on the South Side has been a challenge. Because of increased criminal activity over the years, Gavozzi keeps the door locked even when he is open for business.
“It’s like a zoo over here, just like zoo,” he said. “And it does affect [business] because people are afraid to come here.”
Though he said no one’s acted violently toward him or his business, he said he learned quickly you can’t be too nice to people because they might take advantage of you.
Unlike his body and business, Gavozzi’s love for his wife Florence has never worn out. They live in their home in Boardman just two miles from the shop.
“She was a cute little blonde,” he said. “She was gorgeous. She’s still pretty.”
Together, they raised three children, Ted, Tom and Susan, who blessed them with grandchildren. Gavozzi said he couldn’t feel prouder of his children and the lives they’ve led.
While growing up, Tom Gavozzi said his father was an amazing role model and true perfectionist.
“He was the epitome of what I think a father figure should be: strong and hard-working for his family,” Tom said. “Family was always the priority, and he would do whatever it took to provide for us.”
Ted Gavozzi said he knows that changing trends have limited his business. And though he’s closing shop, it’s not easy, thus he is taking his time. The new owner is letting Gavozzi stay rent-free for three years, and he will take his time packing up.
Though he may have had to let go of his life as an upholsterer, he said he’ll never regret working at the shop through all its ups and downs.
“I enjoyed every minute of it,” he said. “I get a lot of satisfaction when I get something done and I look back at it and say, ‘Boy did I do that?’”