Days Gone By: Sons remember early years of father's business By JOHN FOOKS/Gazette Staff The small, white-frame building behind the home at East Fourth and Ash streets that the Lavender boys grew up in is still there and still holds fond memories for the brothers. It was where their father, Joseph "Joe" Lavender started Bell Radio, later to become Lavender Electronics, one of Texarkana's longest-serving electronics companies. The senior Lavender started the business in 1936, right before he and his wife, Josephine, got married. "Our mother was born in 1918 and graduated from high school in Little Rock's Central High School in 1936," said Jim Lavender, at 48 the middle of the three brothers. "She took a civil service exam and came down here and was one of the first of three employees for the Texarkana Social Security office." The couple met at Beech Street First Baptist Church. Josephine lived across the street from the church in a boarding house that would later become the church's administration building. During her first Sunday morning in church she noticed that one of the young men in the choir stood up and left the choir after hearing a siren screaming off in the distance. A few minutes later he returned and took his place among the choir as if nothing had happened. "Mother later learned that dad for some reason liked chasing fires and he had walked outside to see if he could tell which direction the fire truck was going and if it was close by," Lavender said. "It must have happened during the sermon. As much as daddy loved going to fires, I don't think he would have left the choir in the middle of a hymn." Whatever the original attraction, Joseph and Josephine Lavender were married in 1937. Robert Lavender, the oldest of the brothers, said none of the boys is exactly sure how or why their father started Bell Radio, a radio repair business, but they all remember it because they grew up with it. They figure he named the business after Alexander Graham Bell. But they do recall stories told at the dinner table about their father's early interest in radio. Like most youths in those years, radio held a special fascination for the young electronics buff. "Dad started working on whatever radios he could get his hands on when he was in high school, probably the 10th grade or so," Robert Lavender said. "He actually first opened a little business he worked in after school up on East Seventh Street, across from where Taco Bell is today. When he and mother bought the house on Ash Street he moved the business into that little white building and named it Bell Radio." Business apparently was good, because at one point the senior Lavender had seven people doing service work for him, including his brother-in-law. In the very early 1940s, as war was escalating overseas, Lavender decided he wanted to expand his business from simple radio repair and service to wholesale electronics- selling to people who were in the radio repair business. "I believe the first product line dad got and could sell as a distributor was Eveready Batteries," said the youngest son, George. "At first dad kept his wholesale business separate from his retail business." The physical end of the business tripled with the wholesale lines coming in. When Lavender ran out of room in the small white frame building he began keeping his stock in the house, some of which found itself under the couple's bed. Lavender moved the wholesale part of the business into the home's sunroom on the south end of the house and named it Lavender Radio Supply Co. He eventually sold Bell Radio to his brother-in-law, Stewart Beall. Almost as soon as he started the wholesale side of the business, Lavender had to leave it in the hands of his wife and his father, Joseph Melvin Lavender, while he went off to war. Not one to resist the call of his country, Lavender signed up with the Merchant Marines almost as soon as war was declared. Giving his wife and father quick lessons in how to order and resupply wholesale products, Lavender began his military career doing what he knew best-as a radio operator. The business survived the war, as did Lavender, who began building the business again after returning from the service, eventually moving the wholesale business to its primary location for the next 40 or so years in the 500 block of East Fourth Street. It later became Lavender TV & Radio and still later Lavender Electronics. Lavender stayed active in the business until his death in 1984. Today all three brothers work out of the same building in three different businesses. Robert, the oldest, owns Lavender Business Products, specializing in custom built computers, networks, upgrades, computer parts and technical support; Jim owns Lavender Imaging Products, specializing in re-manufactured toner cartridges for laser printers, copiers and fax machines; and George has a partnership in Ellco Distributing, an electronics parts dealership very similar to the original Lavender Electronics. http://www.texarkanagazette.com/