“The Place That Mattered”

G. May and Sons Furniture was an anchor for the Jasper business community for many decades. As it turned out, the store offered more than a place to buy merchandise. It offered a lifetime of memories.

Words by Al Blanton | Images by Ryan McGill and courtesy of the May family

The patriarch of a century-long business came to Walker County in 1905 in search of a better life.

Gerson May grew up in a small village in the Baltic state of Latvia and immigrated to Birmingham, Alabama, looking for a suitable trade and a place to raise a family. In those days, immigrants needed a sponsor to enter the United States. Fortunately for Gerson, the path had been paved by a cousin who was living stateside at the time.

After moving to Birmingham, Gerson sent for a girl back home, Fannie, with whom he'd become well-acquainted and would eventually call his wife. The couple were married in the "Magic City" but moved to Dora/Sumiton when they heard that the railroad had spurred a growth of stores and people in that area. Shortly thereafter, Gerson and Fannie welcomed two sons, Isaac "Ike" May in 1907, and Oscar "Babe" May in 1909.

Gerson initially worked as a door-to-door salesman, peddling notions (pots, pans, and the like) to housewives in the area. The business was prosperous, and eventually, Gerson graduated from a pack on his back as the means to ply his trade to a horse and buggy. Later, he opened a store in the location of the current Synovus Bank building in Dora, but when the store burned, the Mays moved to Chattanooga for a time. Then, after learning that a coal mine was opening near Parrish, they moved back to Walker County and set up a grocery store just up the hill from the mines. They named it G. May & Sons.

"When the shifts would change, the miners would get off work, come up the hill, and come into the store and buy groceries to take home," recalls Gerson May, the grandson of the elder Gerson May, who would later run the establishment built by his grandparents.

At only six or seven, young Gerson worked at the store on Saturdays and remembers that Fannie, who lived next door, would open the store in the morning and close it at the end of the day.

One principle established in those early days that fostered a sense of customer loyalty was extending credit to union workers. "When the mines went on strike, my grandfather and grandmother would say to (the miners), 'Get what you need…pay us when you go back to work,'" said Fred May, the younger Gerson's cousin. "They sold everything on credit, which, I guess, was the custom of the time, and would get paid on payday. That was the principle that we lived on throughout the history of G. May & Sons."

At the time, Jewish families settling in the area opened dry goods and other types of stores, many of which would outlast the depression and contribute to a growing economy. The Jasper Variety Store, a dry goods store that opened in 1925, was owned by Mr. Louis Sokol. A snippet in The Daily Mountain Eagle from August 25, 1926, said that the store "will carry a complete and up-to-date line of dry goods, gents furnishings, and ladies ready to wear." Whether it was this particular store or a separate store founded by Sokol, brothers Ike and Babe purchased Sokol Furniture Company on Third Avenue in Jasper sometime after World War II. This became the original location of G.May & Sons Furniture.

By that time, the Mays had opened a wholesale grocery business near the railroad tracks on Fifth Avenue. While one brother ran the grocery, the other ran the ex-Louis Sokol business. In addition to furniture, G. May & Sons sold ladies' and men's clothing in the building next door.

(L-R) Babe May and Ike May pictured at G May and Sons Wholesale Grocery on 5th Avenue in Jasper, circa 1938.

Babe and Ike's families continued to be intertwined in the business through the decades of the fifties and sixties. Eventually, their sons, Gerson and Fred, would take over. Both had gained early experience in the business by working in various roles—Gerson driving the delivery truck and Fred working in the store's redemption center, where patrons could redeem a product called S&H Green Stamps. After attending Walker County High School, Gerson graduated from business school at The University of Alabama in 1965 and served in the U.S. Marines, while cousin Fred graduated from Alabama with a degree in marketing in 1970. The strong pull of their hometown and helping with the family business eventually brought Gerson and Fred back to Jasper, and as the two stepped into ownership roles within the company, G.May & Sons experienced unprecedented success over the next few decades.

Expansion was ever at the forefront of Gerson and Fred's minds, and the two cousins functioned with a success-driven synergy. If there was any disagreement between the two, it was short-lived, for there was much work to do and a business to run. And if Fred was the numbers guy in the dynamic, Gerson was the visionary.

"It was all Gerson who came up with the idea of a big fancy new store on Highway 78, our parkway store," recalls Fred.

Clockwise from top left: Fred May, Gerson May, Ike May, and Babe May

Many who grew up in the 1980s and '90s might have assumed there were always multiple locations of G.May & Sons Furniture, but that's not the case. A second store on the 78 bypass was opened in the late 1960s to meet the growing interest in that stretch of highway.

"Businesses out on the bypass—out on 78—were doing well," Gerson explains. "And there was a piece of property owned by a used car dealer and he wanted to retire. I went to talk to him and he sold the property to G.May & Sons."

Logistically, Fred manned the Third Avenue store while Gerson ran the Parkway Store. Over the years, the Mays continued to modify the store, add new offerings, and add buildings to the Parkway Store—"until it got to the point where it was over 100,000 square feet," Gerson says.

G.May & Sons carried name-brand furniture from all over the country, and Gerson soon had the idea to showcase one of the better-selling brands, Bassett Furniture. "As far as I knew, there was no such thing as Bassett Furniture Gallery. So, I took a section of the store, modified it, put nothing but Bassett in there, and created the Bassett Furniture Showroom," Gerson said.

One day a Bassett sales rep came into the store and was impressed by what he saw. Since Bassett had no other galleries anywhere in the country, G.May & Sons in little bitty Jasper, Alabama, became the lead gallery for the furniture company. The store was so popular with the folks at Bassett that Gerson was invited to speak at several furniture conventions in High Point, North Carolina, the furniture capital of the world.

Fred, on the other hand, was the credit and collections man. Just as his ancestors had done, Fred helped hundreds of Walker County families outfit their homes with deals on credit. Sales were financed in-house, and Fred oversaw the business's credit approvals and debt collection.

Gerson and Fred continued to grow the G.May & Sons brand by adding a floor covering department—which housed over a hundred rows of floor covering, from linoleum to carpet— as well as appliance sales and appliance parts sales.

That success continued and the store clicked on all cylinders until 2016, when a man named Myron Lackey walked in and said, "I want to buy your business."

Initially, Gerson thought he was joking, but when the man returned two weeks later, he knew Mr. Lackey was serious.

Because they were getting up in age and none of their children had any interest in taking over the business, Gerson and Fred figured it was time to sell, and they did so in 2016.

Judy May, Gerson's wife, believes the timing of the sale could not have been better. "It was a happy ending. After all of those years, it was hard to give up, but it was right before COVID so I felt like we were very fortunate," Judy reflects.

Since then, the Mays have continued to pour into others as retirement allows. Gerson and Judy go back and forth between Jasper and Birmingham and care for Judy's 100-year-old mother. Fred continues to influence Jasper positively through civic and charitable activities.

Both Gerson and Fred reflect on their time as proprietors of G.May & Sons positively:

"I think we did have a good reputation," Fred says. "I think we were probably very conscientious about our customer service, about taking care of problems that our customers had with whatever they bought from us. We worked very hard—we all did—in making sure the customer was happy."

Gerson and Fred pose with a painting of the original store in Dora.

When asked what their favorite memories are of G.May & Sons furniture, Gerson replies, "That's an easy question—the people. In any denomination of people, you are always going to run into somebody who's disgruntled or somebody who's not happy with the way things are going. But for the most part, Jasper people were easy to deal with. And it was a pleasure to be of service to them.”

Fred echoes the same sentiment. For the Mays, it was not the love of furniture, the love of appliances, or the love for floor covering that kept the business going for over a century. It was the love of citizens. The love of Jasper. The love of people.

While G.May & Sons may have been in the business of outfitting houses with name-brand furniture, it was a place to build relationships and make memories. It was a place where people were happy.

And it was a place that mattered. 78

Ike May and Gerson May, circa 1940